


Everything you Want (Everything you Need)

by ThatwasJustaDream



Series: Everything You Want [1]
Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, BDSM, Blow Jobs, Bondage, Community: 1_million_words, Dom/sub, Fear of loss, Light Masochism, M/M, Miscommunication, Paddling, Porn with Feelings, Relationship(s), Rimming, Slash, dom!Harvey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-03-14 13:11:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 32,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3411872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatwasJustaDream/pseuds/ThatwasJustaDream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike wants a life with Rachel, but not at the expense of his dom's touch. Harvey's glad he told her. But now the real trick: Not letting Mike learn how much his heart is in play here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Told Her

“I did it….” 

Mike jumped right into the heavy moment after the door opened, answering the question he saw on Harvey’s face - the mix of hope and doubt in his eyes.

“I told her.”

“You _did_ …..” Harvey waved him in, giving him a squeeze on the shoulder as he passed by. It must show, how stressful that had been. “Hunh. Whadda you know? And?”

“You were right. She didn’t leave me, at least not yet. She is…. um, freaked out to a significant degree I think it’s fair to say. But she wasn’t angry. She said she’s thought more than once maybe….”

“We haven’t always been discreet,” Harvey said it in an understanding way, for him, but Mike heard a verbal nudge to move on and not get mired in Rachel’s reactions.

“I told her what you said; that you don’t want what’s hers, only the part of me that’s yours. It seemed to…land right with her. Surprisingly…” 

Harvey had followed him to the living room and was right in front of him now, corners of his mouth turned up, barely, reaching to get a finger under Mike’s belt and pull him the last few inches to him.

“She said she’d think about it on her trip this weekend. I dropped her off at the airport with her mom an hour ago.”

“And if she comes back and says she’s not okay?” 

“I didn’t _ask_ her. I explained I would _stop_ with… this if it was an option but it’s not. I can’t. Can’t not have this.” 

“Why should you have to?” Mike only now fully realized Harvey had popped his jacket button, had slid his arms under it, around him, was letting them start to wander while he kissed Mike’s forehead, his temple with warm, deep presses. “Why shouldn’t everyone have everything they need? Everything they want? Hmmm?”

Mike thought about explaining how most normal people settled for the best of several available alternatives in life and tried to be content with their decision, but ….it was hard to concentrate with Harvey nosing along his cheek, his neck, taking a nip at his ear, abrading his lips on the late afternoon shadow on Mike’s jaw.

“Have you had dinner?” He heard Harvey asked him between caresses and he only nodded his answer, angling his head to let that mouth roam, his own mouth falling open from relief that the time without this was in the past. “Want a drink? Or….”

“No. Just want to be in your bed. Now? Please….”

“All right,” Harvey relieved him of the jacket entirely, folding it, tossing it over the closest edge of the couch. “I know it’s been a tough few weeks without this, but I didn't draw the line to be cruel. You’ll be so glad, Mike, that you told her before you two go any further.”

“I know. I already am. Can we just….”

“Yes, but you’re still way too tense,” Harvey was flipping open Mike’s shirt buttons, pulling it loose, getting hands on his skin and just that touch – the glide of palm and fingers over his chest, his abs, so good, so damn good. “Get in the shower, first. Make it nice and hot. Take lube and the small vibe from your toy box with you, okay? Relax and work yourself very open for me. I want you flat on your back when I get there, arms at your side. Don’t move, don’t talk. Zero words. Any questions?”

“No. Going. Now. If that’s …good. Yeah….” 

Mike heard the pleased snicker it got, him taking off in a hurry, shucking the shirt as he went.

“Do _not_ make yourself come with the vibe,” Harvey ordered.

“That’ll be the biggest challenge. At this point.”

“And, Mike?”

“What?” Could he make his impatience any clearer?

“The unflavored lube. I hate the taste of that mango one.”

“Oh…fuck, yesssss….”

~*~ 

Harvey wandered his apartment; closed the patio door and locked up, put the last of his dishes in the dishwasher. He sipped the drink he’d started before Mike showed up, and listened to the end of the album that had been playing.

As he hit the front door deadbolt, he looked toward his room and the sliver of light from the bathroom. He heard the water stop running as Mike hit the taps and he stood there, waited, wanting to watch the silhouette of Mike walking naked and anxious to his bed.

It was going to be tricky, managing this: Not just because of work or Mike’s growing relationship with Rachel. But because for Mike it was mostly about getting something very specific that he needed – the release of submission, the comfort of a strong, dominant hand.

Whereas for him…. well, Mike might have a crush on him, but if Mike knew how much Harvey’s heart was in this?

Hiding it…managing _it_ ….was going to be the tricky part. Because if Harvey tipped his hand…. he knew it would scare Mike off so fast….

“Thank you,” He said under his breath as he walked his way, addressing whatever organizing force in the universe it was that may have helped his boy find the nerve. “Thank you for getting him here. I’ll try not to fuck it up….”


	2. Playing Dirty

Harvey found him where he had wanted him; on his back on ‘his’ side of the bed and waiting.

Both nightstand lamps were on low, just enough light striking the headboard to see Mike turn, body shifting against the mattress, Mike making a quick huffing sound at his footsteps getting closer. How could he not smile at that? He did his best to mask it; running a hand under his nose like he was randomly rubbing an itch, putting away the tie and shoes he’d collected from his foyer on the way.

He’d been home under an hour when Mike showed up - barely enough time to heat up one of the meals waiting for him in his fridge. It meant he hadn't changed. It wasn't his preference - to be in his work clothes when they started playing. It wasn’t in keeping with their agreement to make this entirely separate.

But he sure hadn’t chosen the timing, or else Mike would have been back here a full two weeks sooner. Better yet, he wouldn’t have needed time to think about them at all.

“I’m glad you’re here,” He said as he walked over to him, one hand reaching to run fingertips over Mike’s cheek as he undid his own shirt with the other. “And I'm proud of you. I mean that.”

Mike honored his orders and only nodded, but there was a smile on his lips to go with the ‘please’ in his eyes. Harvey leaned in to kiss him - light, deeper, and then deeper again at the feeling of their mouths pressing, tongues sliding.

Mike ate it up as long as Harvey gave it to him, jaw loose, humming a soft ‘mmmmm’ into Harvey’s mouth. He knew it wouldn’t get him in trouble, that sound, ‘cause even when words were banned? Noises were highly encouraged, always.

"So damn good..." Harvey pulled away to say before going in for some more.

Mike was all about the mouth; kissing, licking, sucking, giving or receiving. Harvey preferred a good, strong screw to oral _anything_ , any day, but it was handy having a sub with a clear preference. All the better to give to the sub, or to take from them by withholding it.

“I want to keep this simple tonight,” He pulled away and went back to undressing; hearing a low, long groan of disappointment when he did. “I’ll tie your wrists and get you close, then turn you over and fuck you. You’ll sleep bound - wrists and ankles. In the morning I’ll put you over my lap, but not as a punishment; I want you flat out and under my hand.”

He meant it: Mike wasn’t naturally submissive in the rest of his life, and being dominated in the ways he found challenging would get him back in touch with their roles. The fact that he loved making Mike’s ass glow red? That his own body _sang_ with pleasure at holding him down, feeling him squirm, hearing him moan and shout like he was losing his stubborn, mouthy mind? All a bonus.

“I’ll only use my hand - unless you talk tonight, or unless you come before I’m in you,” Harvey saw one eyebrow arch a fraction of an inch, like Mike had heard something he could take advantage of. “My cock, to be specific. Nice try, though. If you do either of those-- talk, or come too soon-- then the rubber paddle with the studs will follow my hand. _That_ will be _all_ punishment. And I won’t limit myself on strikes - I’ll give you whatever feels right.”

Mike was breathing harder already, body not just moving on the bed but twisting like he wanted to get a fist on his hardening dick, to let his back arch and to push into his hand.

"I hate to tell you this,” Harvey dropped the last of his laundry in the hamper and walked back to him, climbing over him, hands digging in to the bed as he spread Mike’s legs apart with a knee. “….but from what I see so far? I’m not liking your odds of holding on.”

~*~

“That’s it… done,” Harvey said when he could, still inside him and catching his breath. “We’re done for the night.”

As in, anything you can say won’t be used against you. Anymore.

“Je _eees_ us……fuck….” Mike’s voice, ragged, face pressed into the pillow, pushing down with his knees and squeezing his hole around Harvey, making him grunt. 

Harvey had started out with the best of intentions to give him a solid shot at not earning a punishment; had kissed and frotted and teased him with his fingers for a while. He’d noticed it then: How close Mike was already, how well he’d worked himself open for him. He must have really gone at it with the vibe – Harvey’s fingers slid in one after another after another and Mike pulled them in, body rippling and silently asking for more.

He’d stopped partly to help him pace this, and to dig the non-stick tape out of the nightstand drawer. Then he’d tied Mike’s wrists and flipped him, taking inventory of Mike’s shoulder blades and back with his lips, kissing over muscle and bone, the dip where his waist narrowed down by the base of his spine, licking and biting over his ass cheeks and, well….

That’s where it kicked in, the urge to hear him fall apart. It was a strong drive for Harvey, difficult to manage in the best of times and these had not been the best of times. 

“Oh…noooo…Harvey, fuck me, fu _uuuuc_ ck….” Mike had almost shouted it when Harvey dug into his ass with his teeth – nothing that would leave deep marks, but strong enough to push shivering jolts through all those sensitive nerve endings, all through _him_.

He’d pinned him down and spread those cheeks and licked and bit them, too, tongue sliding along the crease, pressing barely inside him, Mike back in control enough to not let loose with any more words but not so in control that he wasn’t sobbing and shaking. 

He’d added fingers again, licked around them, pressing them deep in search of his target and when he hit it Mike went almost silent, croaking out a long, deeply pleasured sound as he came all over the sheets, all over himself, his whole body bucking, fucking the bed in lieu of anything better.

“No, you didn’t need that,” Harvey had milked him for another half a minute until he was past done, barely waiting a beat before pressing a hand into his back and pushing into him. “Not at all, huh?”

He’d gotten another orgasm out of him, or something like it; Mike groaning low from the overstimulation as Harvey screwed him, biting his own lip until it was red, Harvey tight against him and half holding him up.

“No goddamn fair,” Mike said against the pillow, bringing him back to the moment. “Eating me out. You knew I couldn’t….”

“ _Fair_?” Harvey gave his ass a slap on his way out of him and down to the mattress. “Are you kidding me? What does the ‘S’ stand for, Mike?”

“Rat. Bastard.”

“You goddamn loved it.”

“Yeah, I did,” Mike sighed it, sinking in, too. “Shit…that wasn’t…. _too_ humiliating….”

 

~*~

"Need anything?” Harvey pressed along the seam of the fresh twist of PVC tape where he’d stopped rolling it - over Mike's hands and well past the wrists. “Water? An extra pillow?”

“The two small pillows,” Mike lifted his head, looking for them. “For under my hands. And between my knees.”

He’d let Mike loose long enough to hit the bathroom and to get some water. To rearrange the wrecked sheets – wiping them down and tossing a blanket over them.

“Yeah, hold on a sec...” Harvey got up and went to the closet, rummaged around a shelf and brought them. “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t throw them away, they were only across the room.”

“Guess I should just be glad they weren’t already between someone else’s knees.”

“You know there was no way I was taking anyone else on ’til….long after you decided. If you decided otherwise.” 

Harvey helped get him arranged; Mike on his side, ankles taped, too, a sheet over him to his ribs. He was tied at angles that would let him rest comfortably in his favored right side sleep position, arms loose enough to adjust no matter which way he might fling himself while he slept.

And he did, Harvey thought. Fling himself in his sleep. Like a man on a rocking boat some nights. He’d been kicked hard more than once.

Nightmares. Harvey wondered if Mike ever had good dreams. He’d seen no sign of any.

“What if there’s a fire in the middle of the night?” Mike looked from his hands to Harvey as Harvey got himself arranged and hit the lights. 

“I’ve got scissors. In the drawer. You’ll be free in three seconds,” he settled in, eyes adjusting to the lack of what little light they'd had, watching Mike’s eyes in the dark.

“What If I need to take a piss?”

“You wake me. Don't ask how, get creative," he said and, yeah, that eye roll was very visible. "Not only will I free your feet, I’ll go _with_ and help make sure you hit the bowl…”

“What if….”

“Are you seriously _quizzing_ me? Like a five year old?” Harvey tried to sound more commanding than annoyed but both got in.

It wasn’t as if he bound Mike overnight very often, but it wasn’t the first time, either. He knew the rattled off questions he was getting weren’t about anything, really; only Mike looking for any excuse not to fall asleep, to talk about nothing important for a few minutes before they drifted off. 

“Can I stay until Sunday?” Mike asked, and that was a surprise. 

That was a little more weighty than all those random nothings.

“Yes. Was going to ask in the morning if you would.”

“If I go home…I’ll have Sunday night on my brain the whole time.”

“I have some thoughts about that. As in maybe a road trip? Get away from the city ’til, say, two-ish on Sunday?”

“Sure..." Mike pulled at the pillow under his head with his ear trying to get it where he wanted it and Harvey helped him move it. "Where are we going?”

“I’ll tell you over breakfast. Get some sleep, okay? Do the breathing thing - focus on relaxing toe to head and back. You’ll be out in no time.”

“Yes, sir,” Mike said softly, like he was already giving it a go, and it felt so good hearing it that Harvey couldn’t speak for a second.

He turned over instead, on his own right side.

“‘Night, Mike.”

“‘Night.”


	3. Bracing and Concealing

Mike woke up lying almost exactly where he’d drifted off, the sounds of ‘Weekend Edition Saturday’ filtering in from the living room through the not quite shut bedroom door. 

“Harvey!” He tried, but the talk radio was louder than he felt like calling out. “Umm, Har……damn.”

Then he shifted and realized his hands were still bound but his ankles were free. A pair of his own sweatpants from 'his' drawer had been tugged over his feet and up to his hips. 

He sat up, and realized three things in quick succession: He wasn’t starving, didn’t have an urgent need to piss, and he was tired. Still. So much had changed so fast in less than twenty four hours - and even if it all felt for the better it was stressful.

Plus, this was the only Saturday he'd have all week and the pillow he was settling back into smelled like fabric softener and Harvey’s cologne. 

He closed his eyes and thought about the first time he’d woken up here.

_“I should tan your goddamned ass for that….shoddy excuse for intel. Is that what I asked you to come back here with? Is it even close?"_

Harvey had yanked him by an arm all the way from the associate’s area to the privacy of his office before ripping into him. That simple act, being dragged so hard he almost tripped and fell, combined with Harvey's choice of words….it had gotten it flowing in his gut - a specific, familiar tingle. 

“You do that?” Mike blurted. Because it hadn't sounded like your average idle threat, but something Harvey might really enjoy. “Regularly? Uh... as a hobby?”

“Something like that,” Harvey had glanced back to make sure Donna was still out at lunch. Then he’d pushed Mike onto one of the chairs by his conference table and watched him for a minute like he was deciding whether to say more or not. “Except I’d call it an avocation. How …experienced are you?”

“There was a girl in school," Mike saw him make an ‘oh, please’ face. “She cuffed me to her headboard and fucked me with one of those straight, skinny plastic vibrators. It turned out I …. God, I loved it, even when she went bigger and started forcing orgasms out of me. But…she wasn’t into anything …rough. And I realized I wanted rough, maybe. So I ....went and found it. Repeatedly. But I made a bad decision one night – didn’t trust my instincts and I went home with a freak. It wasn’t good.”

“You took a step back…” Harvey sat in the chair opposite. “Waiting for someone you could trust.”

“I trust you,” Mike blurted that, too, before Harvey could tell him he’d make some phone calls for him, see who he could line up for him because this wasn’t happening between them. “Of course….you _know_ I trust you. But I mean I would trust you….with that. With _me_. Jeeez, it’s so …obvious. How could I have not guessed that you would be into….”

“Slow down,” Harvey said, but he was settling back deeper into his chair, not getting up and that looked like a hopeful sign. “There’s a lot left to discuss. Starting with how confident you are we could keep it out of …here. Entirely. Because if you let it slip to one person, you might as well tell everyone.”

“I think it goes without saying, that I’d never…”

“It doesn’t. Go without saying. Not by a long shot. And we’ll have to talk expectations – about roles, limits. Yours and mine.”

“Tell me when and where.”

“My apartment. Wednesday.”

“Why Wednesday?”

“Know anyone who doesn’t need to blow off a little steam by Wednesday night?”

Harvey was looking him over- up and down, slowly, and damn it was an appraising gaze he’d never felt from him before. Like Harvey was considering where to start. And there it was – that fuzzy ache in his gut again.

“So…we’re going to talk and …we’re gonna …try …some things?”

“Maybe. We’ll have to see. Oh, and one other thing – so we don’t waste each other’s time: My relationship with a sub? To be clear, it’s never romantic, ever. You flash me puppy eyes once and that’s going to be a problem. But it is a relationship. So you need to consider if you’re okay with that, too?”

“What do you mean, aside from the obvious?”

“I mean certain nights we’re only together for a couple of hours and you go home, but other times, when we both want it, you stay. And that it’s not only about sex and control and mindfuck; it’s touching and kissing and me taking care of you afterward, making sure you’re good. Are you up for all of that? With me?”

“Yes,” he’d said a little too fast and saw Harvey catch that.

He ended up staying the first Wednesday and most of them that had followed in the last six months; spooned against him or sprawled next to him, some nights boneless with relief and endorphins and others his sore body still thrumming. 

They told each other he stayed because they played hard and late, and it made no sense him dealing with dressing and catching a ride home at one a.m. but… Mike knew he had other reasons. 

How do you tell your dom that yeah, you have feelings for your new girlfriend but you’ve managed to fall in love with him too? Against everything you both agreed to?

 

~*~

“Good morning,” Harvey said, when he saw Mike walking slowly toward him, hands in front of him. “You slept well, didn’t you? I actually checked once to make sure you were breathing…”

He was standing in his kitchen, elbows on the counter, flipping through the Times. His voice was level. Detached. He barely looked up. Mike’s heart sank; Harvey was already preparing mentally for his paddling.

“Wow…did I ever. I don’t think I moved all night.”

“Want some coffee?”

“Please.”

Mike stood by the end of the counter, putting his bound hands on it with a bit of emphasis, to try to make the point that perhaps he’d like to bring the cup to his own lips. Harvey poured and gave him a long look as he set it down in front of him – then he put out a hand to ask for Mikes’ and began to slowly unwind the tape.

“Shake ‘em out good while you drink that,” Harvey said. “Your wrists are going to be in close proximity again soon.”

“Do we have to do this now? First thing in the morning?” 

Mike watched the one eyebrow go up the moment he asked. Not both eyebrows like last night, both eyebrows meaning ‘this is unexpected and hopeful.’ One. Which meant ‘you didn’t just really…’

“We don’t have to do this _ever_ ,” Harvey said it as if he weren’t very deeply looking forward to his own palm stinging and red from striking Mike’s ass cheeks. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but if you don’t want it and I force you….that’s prosecutable, isn't it?”

“I’m not …hesitant for nothing,” Mike tried again. “You know it’s the hardest thing for me. The hardest thing out of everything we do. I’d rather have you…”

“Have you considered that I know that?” He flipped another page of the paper and seemed to actually be reading the damn thing. “And I still think it’s what you need?”

“Yeah,” Mike drank the coffee and tried to think about something other than the inevitable. “Where are we going? For this day trip?”

“Upstate.”

“Upstate like Westchester, or…”

“Uh, no. Like, Lake George. I have a seasonal weekend place. Condo. We’ll get away from the city, maybe hit the horse races in Saratoga tomorrow before we come back?”

“How am I only now hearing about this hideaway?”

“Because as cocky as I know everyone thinks I am,” Harvey started folding up the paper. “I don’t want to be that guy. Coming in on Monday boasting about the leaves changing and how relaxing it is to see a clear sky full of stars.”

“Yeah, that would not make you any more popular with….anyone.”

“Exactly. Plus, I only get there half a dozen times a year myself, maybe, so…” He dropped the paper by Mike’s cup. “Here… go on the terrace and drink that. Relax for a few minutes.”

“Where will you be?”

“Packing us a bag. I think you have enough of your weekend things here. I’ll let you know. Then I’ll get what we need set up by the sofa,” He headed for his room, pressing lips to Mike’s head near one ear on his way by. “Be there in twenty. On your knees, fingers clasped behind your back. Okay?”

Hands behind. Much more immobilizing. Harder to twist away from Harvey’s lap once he was lying over it. 

“Yes, sir.” 

Mike took his coffee outside and tried to use his breath to calm his heavily thumping heart. 

It wasn’t the pain he was afraid of, or the deeply submissive act only a few minutes from playing out that had him nerved up. It was the way the combination tended to drive him out of his mind – made him shout and sometimes beg, and say….shit.

Harvey would end it so fast if he let it slip. How he felt. Mike just knew it.


	4. Torn open

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this they will actually get dressed and get out of the apartment, I swear.

“Come forward,” Harvey stayed put, arms out, sitting with his back to his sofa. “I’ve got you…”

He’d pushed the tables away, arranged pillows on the floor and his lap for Mike to lie over. Harvey was wearing sweatpants, too, and the ivory, oversized around-the-house sleep shirt that felt like silk and cotton. Mike couldn’t see it on him without thinking how good it felt to get a fistful of it and tug, or to nap against it while they watched a movie.

None of that was going to happen today; Mike crouched down by him and leaned in, his own arms bound tight behind him - higher than he liked. 

“Comfortable?” Harvey asked as Mike lay down and stretched his lower body out. 

“No,” he kept it at that.

He felt Harvey’s hand smoothing over his bare back, fingers and palm sliding under the top of Mike’s sweatpants on the down strokes. An extra pillow was under his hips, pitching his ass slightly upward and giving him something to push into. Not that he would come - he never did from a paddling. The pain and lingering burning usually left his dick at half-mast, his body thrumming with used-up stress hormones.

“You’re about to blister my ass,” he couldn't resist pointing out after all, face turning toward him on one of the pillows. “What difference does it make if I’m comfortable while you wind up?”

“Poor thing,” Harvey said softly, still stroking him, something meditative creeping into his voice. “So abused. You know I’m careful. I don’t leave blisters. Usually.”

“How many?” Mike asked, shifting around to help as Harvey tugged Mike’s pants down to knee level. “How many hits with the paddle?”

“Forty five,” Harvey said, his arm rising and falling without warning.

That first slap from Harvey’s hand was quick and sharp. Mike hissed with surprise at the suddenness and at the number he’d heard.

“That’s…a lot.”

“Five for each of the six words you weren’t supposed to let out of your mouth…”

“I did not say six words, I know I didn’t…”

“To quote you directly: ‘oh, no, Harvey, fuck me, fuck.’ That’d be six,” Harvey’s palm and fingers started smacking into his skin again, warming it up. “The other fifteen are for coming too soon. I know you tried, but….well, you failed.”

“Oh…mmmmnnn…” Mike pressed the side of his face a little harder into the pillow as Harvey’s hand started hitting him harder. “ _Ohhhhh_ yeah…it’s a good thing talking’s okay now, ‘cause…I’m gonna go … _crap_ ….gonna go _off_ before this is done.”

“Stop means stop,” Harvey said. His voice was rough; the paddle must be coming into play soon. “But if I don’t hear ‘stop’ I keep going.”

Mike made a sound that was supposed to convey ‘yes, I know, whatever, hope you enjoy this ‘cause one of us should’ but it came out stuttered and breathless and not nearly dismissive enough.

Harvey’s right hand stilled, palm pressing against one ass cheek, absorbing the warmth radiating from it. His left cupped the back of Mike’s neck, pressing down there too, thumb stroking his skin as he held him steady.

Mike felt him shift slightly, reaching for the paddle; solid rubber, narrow, smooth steel studs covering one side; Mike’s least favorite toy in the world. He’d seen Harvey getting set up for this, taking the paddle out of the freezer and… damn him for getting creative.

“Count it out in your head,” Harvey said, voice almost a murmur as he raised his arm again. “It helps. I’m told."

A much longer version of the sound he’d made a minute ago poured out of Mike’s throat right before it landed, his body jumping at the burning bite when it did. The paddle made a dull thwack when used lightly but Harvey wasn’t going light today. It snapped like the pop of a flogger but deeper.

Mike groaned, trying to fight the instinct to clench his ass muscles, too. Counting. Two…three…. 

Clenching made the slaps hurt less but sent them running down his thighs, which felt way more jarring and awful. They were more diffuse if he let go as much as he could, the ache running through his muscles and up into his lower back, instead. Less like stabbing pain, more like firecrackers going off in waves.

“Son of a…. _bitch_ , why can’t you be all about the bondage?” Mike felt Harvey’s left hand press harder on his neck when he tried to lift his head. “Less about the sadism.”

“Down,” Harvey ordered, voice hitting the ‘d’ hard. “Breathe.”

Mike knew better than to ignore that order; during one of their first rounds with a paddle he’d struggled against him so hard the room went swimmy. So he gulped in air as the next volley started - equally as jolting but faster, the paddle alternating between cheeks this time, Harvey taking it lower and lower, close to the most tender spots. The ones that made him lose it; made him feel like he was catching on fire. 

“Harvey…. please, no….” they were only up to fifteen when it really kicked in; fight or flight filling him, making his body twist involuntarily, trying to roll away. Harvey’s left hand pushed even deeper, finger finding the spot under Mike’s ear by his jaw that hurt like crazy when he pressed inward. “Don’t, no… _ahhhhh_ , fuck….not so….”

He felt himself slide into that place where all he could do is swear on a loop. Only half of each word made it out, the rest turning into a grunt or a barked ‘no’ until he was hoarse. 

Harvey was going somewhere, too - heating up under him, the scent of the soap from his shower earlier growing around them as his skin warmed. He felt Harvey lift his knees a little, left arm going around to tip him to him and pull him in tighter. He barely stopped for a second though, and then was wailing on him again, faster, until the strikes ran together.

Through the haze settling over him, he heard Harvey going to his happy place; cursing now, too, breathing harder at Mike starting to come apart. It was one of the reasons he resisted the urge to yell ‘stop’ when he got there; out-of- control, fighting the bonds around his wrists and arms, body jumping, twisting. 

He made a semi-conscious decision to give in to it, instead, pulling in more air between choked off groans, willing himself to let go inch by inch. To feel this and to not think. It helped – he slid so far away that when he heard someone shouting it took a while realize it was his own voice.

“Done,” Harvey went loose under him, tossing the paddle, and it was over. 

Done. Just like that, except it had felt like forever.

Harvey sounded spent; had a hand on Mike’s hip, the other on his bound hands, anchoring him to keep him from rolling awkwardly away.

Mike wasn’t sure what to call the long, shivering sounds he made whenever this was over. They were rasping and full of something heavy - something the pain had torn out of him. There was relief in there, too, at unloading whatever it was. He always felt better after, for a couple of weeks, maybe. It varied.

“Shiiit, that was… really fricking harsh,” he got that much out, then laughed hysterically at how drunk he sounded. 

“You did great,” Harvey was unwinding the tape from his wrists, helping him lower his arms down to the floor, massaging them to push out any stiffness. “You really did.”

Mike nodded, pushing up enough to move back, to rearrange pillows and settle in with his head on Harvey’s lap. He drifted in and out. Three minutes? Five? Felt a hand tracing over him the whole time; his side, his hip, Harvey tugging gradually at his sweats until Mike was covered up. 

He might have slipped deeply asleep if a hand hadn’t slid back in to squeeze one cheek, to make it burn again.

“Did you really just…” Mike mumbled. “…seriously?”

“Sorry,” Harvey didn’t look it. “Couldn’t resist. It was right there.”

Mike rolled more onto his back, even at some sacrifice. 

“Pervert.” He reached up with a hand and touched Harvey’s face, palm cupping it, their eyes meeting and …

Harvey’s mouth popped open at what he saw. Mike looked away. Not fast enough, though.

“Mike…hey,” a hand gently on top of his head. “What was that about?” 

He heard Harvey trying to sound disinterested and failing.

“What was _what_ about?” He reached for that shirt, eyes firmly on it, pulling the buttons apart. “I’m woozy. That’s all. You would be, too, if…”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. You know me; I hate it while you’re doing it and after it’s over I’m floating. I might as well enjoy the payoff, right? You did your job well.”

The word ‘job’ did it; he felt Harvey’s hand fall away from his head.

Mike decided the best deflection was to keep going. Besides, Harvey had been at least half way to coming under him, he’d felt that for sure.

“Can I suck you off?” He reached in for Harvey’s bare chest where he’d gotten the shirt open, planting kisses from his abs up to his chest, moving the fabric to lick at one deep brown nipple and then giving the other his attention. “I was good. You said I was. Come in my mouth for me?”

Mike felt him stretch out, helped him get the rest of the shirt open and wriggle out of his own sweats. There wouldn’t be as much time to enjoy it as he’d like; Harvey was too close to be patient, to let him play for very long. 

He prolonged it as much as he dared, though, kissing down the slight swell of his stomach, nosing through the thin line of hair from belly button to groomed pubes. Happily for him Harvey trimmed and didn’t shave; he fingered them while he kissed around one thigh, urging his legs apart, teeth nipping his legs, tongue tracing to his balls, humming when Harvey sighed at them being licked and sucked. One leg went fully loose under Mike, bending, Harvey's knee going out to give Mike more access.

He lapped wetly and then tugged at them with his lips, a hand around the base of Harvey’s cock, playing until Harvey was panting. 

Then a hand was back in Mike’s hair – very light, no pressure, and it was amazing to him; as rough as Harvey got in other ways, he never forced this. Always let him run it. 

He’d have to ask him why, sometime. 

“Jeesus… _fuck_ ,” Harvey’s head fell back on the sofa when Mike went down on him - no more teasing only deep, long pulls, head bobbing, humming around him. 

A few more and Harvey’s back arched. He didn’t make a sound but Mike felt the head of his cock twitch, the vein against his tongue throbbing and he went deeper to take it in- to swallow all the way through it for him. 

“Such a …sweet mouth….so good…” Harvey let him help him with this sweats, too. “Damn, I could…nap. You know? We can stay in town instead. If you want?”

“No! Road trip,” Mike pushed up and knelt by him, giving him a shove. “You promised.”

“Okay. Road trip,” Harvey agreed, but his eyes fell closed again.

“Is there a fireplace? At this condo I didn’t know about?” Mike ran fingers up and down the button side of Harvey's shirt, fiddling with them.

“There is.”

“Are there woods? With bobcats?”

“Nearby. There’s a lake out the back door. And a grill. And a deck,” Harvey roused. “I called ahead; the fridge and the wood pile will be stocked.”

“Let’s get going,” Mike helped him up but made sure to follow behind him. “All we’re doing now is burning daylight.”

As they walked to the bedroom, he looked for any sign Harvey was still maybe analyzing his facial slip up earlier. His accidental heart eyes.

He didn’t see one. Mike allowed himself a small sigh of relief.


	5. Something's Shifted

“Would you like a drink as well, sir?” The stewardess looked up at Mike, who was standing behind the seat he’d occupied during takeoff, his hands on either side of the headrest. “A cocktail? Or a coffee?”

She was hovering over Harvey in the first row window spot, setting a napkin and silverware on his tray table after getting his request for a flat white latte. She didn’t seem confused as to why Mike was standing. Maybe it happened a lot; it was a private jet, and they were the only two on it.

“I don’t suppose I could get a baggie filled with ice?” Mike asked it as off-handedly as you could ask that kind of thing. “For my…. head.”

“You have a headache?” She was looking at him intently, like she hadn’t noticed any signs of distress out of him until now. Flight crews _did_ probably have to read their passengers. “We have Advil and Tylenol.”

“A Bloody Mary, please. That’ll do it. Thanks.” 

Mike heard Harvey chuckle under his breath, looking up from his phone and over his shoulder long enough to give Mike a wink as she walked away. 

“Smooth,” Harvey said. “I barely noticed the shift in gears. I’ll bet she didn’t. Much.”

“You enjoyed that paddling … _much_ ," Mike leaned in to say it by Harvey's ear. "You took the last few weeks of uncertainty out on my hind end, didn’t you?”

“Please. I did not.” Harvey set his phone down. “I _did_ enjoy the hell out of it; you caterwauling, losing your shit.”

“I didn’t … _caterwaul_. I shouted. A little. Tell me again why we have to fly there?”

“It’s a four hour drive,” Harvey explained, “…or a twenty five minute flight and a quick ride. We barely have a day and a half to ourselves, and you’re being a whiny baby, so…extended sitting would not be any fun. For either of us.”

“You don’t co-own this plane, do you?”

“No, not that I wouldn’t like to someday. I buy hours.”

“How many? Per year?”

“Fifteen, usually. Why?”

“It’ll eat up two point six hours of your flying time, getting us to and from Harvnando’s Hideaway. That’s what, not quite twenty percent of your stash?”

“Almost exactly,” Mike heard a hint of respect in Harvey’s voice for his rapid sizing up of it. “How do you even know that skit to make a lame pun with it?”

“I used to watch late night SNL reruns when I got baked. What’s the price tag? On this?”

“You don’t want to know,” Harvey said as the stewardess returned.

“A coffee and a Bloody...” she set Harvey’s drink down and handed Mike his, then she dropped a freezer bag full of ice on Mike’s empty seat. “I’ll just leave that there. Can I get you anything else?”

“We’re good,” Harvey looked from the baggie to Mike and didn’t even bother hiding his grin. “Thanks.”

“I’ll be by again before we land, but call us if you need anything.”

She looked at Mike on her way by with what felt like empathy.

“She knew exactly what I need that ice for…” 

Mike walked around the seat and set his drink on Harvey's tray, ignoring the hint of a scowl that decision got him. He pulled a magazine out of the leather pouch on the plane wall in front of them, ripped a few pages of “The Atlantic” loose and set them on top of the baggie before sitting on it. 

“I highly doubt she _knew_ anything...” Harvey pushed his seat back. “But if she didn’t wonder before….” 

Mike pushed back, too, grabbing his drink and trying to relax into the extra padded cushions. There were sixteen seats, to his quick count – and light tan recliners with two small circular coffee tables in the back near the restroom with swivel chairs around them. The steward and stewardess attending to them had those tables set up as their own coffee area, since the flight was lightly occupied and so short.

“Six thousand dollars,” Mike said.

“For what?”

“This. Round trip. That’s my guess.”

“You’re only about …eight percent too low,” Harvey said. “Good guess.”

“Damn. That’s _reasonable_?”

-*-

 

“So are you ‘Upstate Ray?’” Mike asked the man who was driving them the last twenty miles from the airport to Harvey’s place.

“I’ve met Ray, actually…” The driver looked up into his rear view to give Mike a nod. “Your boss got me Knicks tickets. My brother couldn’t make it when the time came, so he went with me. Good guy. We talked shop. I wouldn’t trade my daily route for his, not in a million years.”

It felt weird riding in a black car with only low seat backs between them and Sam, who was getting them where they were going.

“Do you make it to the city a lot?” Mike asked. It was as much to fill time as anything: They’d both immediately checked emails that had come in for them during the flight, and since Harvey always had five emails to his one he was still immersed.

“Not really,” Sam shrugged and changed lanes. Mike saw his eyes shift in the mirror, looking for Harvey’s okay to go on. He saw Harvey nod slightly, like ‘he’s okay to talk freely with…’ “It’s… kind of intense there. We get a lot of people up here from your neck of the woods. Most of them… they’re jerks, to be blunt…”

“That’s not blunt,” Mike said. “That’s polite.”

“Yes, well… Harvey’s an exception. We’re always glad to see him show up. I manage a restaurant, which is what I mean by ‘we.’ This is a side business of mine…” Sam shifted from talking to Mike to addressing Harvey. “Think you’ll make it by?”

“We can come for lunch tomorrow,” Harvey said, eyes never leaving his phone. “Will you get us to the track first in the morning? Pick us up quarter of nine? We’ll probably need a few rides before we go.”

“You got it, sir…” Sam said.

Mike spent the rest of the trip kicking it around in his head: How so many of the people who knew Harvey thought of him as a crass jerk with no empathy, while the rest would go way the hell out of their way for him with a ‘no problem’ on their lips.

He wondered how _he'd_ be seen after another dozen years at this life they lived.

-*-

“Woah,” Mike paused to take in the late afternoon sky in front of them. Then he pushed forward again, catching up with Harvey. “…that’s… unbelievable….”

“Worth the effort, huh?” Harvey was headed toward a boulder that covered the whole western side of the hill, pulling his pack off his back and reaching for the water bottle inside it.

Mike was glad for a pause. Not that it had been a strenuous hike: The path Harvey took them on started out on a shared walking and biking trail that made Mike miss his bike for a moment. Then it wound slowly around one corner of what turned out to be an immense lake; larger and more deeply blue-black than anything he’d expected to see, too big to walk around in anything less than about five or six hours

When they started out he’d thought Harvey intended to keep it short, but it was a beautiful day; the crisp air and being in motion felt great. They kept going into the second hour without even discussing it.

The path started climbing, then, winding west away from the water and onto this hilltop with its perfect view of three broad mountains in the distance. They filled the whole skyline, and gave a sense of how deep the valley they were staying in really was. 

Nightfall was still a few hours off, but the clouds over them were already starting to turn crimson and orange and gold around the edges. They’d be on fire when sunset came. As lovely as this was, Mike started to look forward to watching that – being at Harvey’s again, kicked back with a drink in their hands.

“I think the air here…” Mike took in a full breath of it, smelling pine tar and black dirt. “… it has more oxygen than at home.”

“I’m sure it does,” Harvey found them a flat expanse on the ridge in front of them and sat, eyes on the sky. “Did you ever go to camp? Or have a friend with a weekend place?”

“No. Mostly spent summer vacations in town,” Mike said, still standing, eyes fixed on the sky. “Ran around the parks, skateboarding. Hanging out.”

“Playing handball?” Harvey asked.

“I grew up in New York,” Mike said. “Not New York in the seventies.”

“Shut up," Harvey handed him up the water.

It wasn’t a tough order to follow: The woods were full of birds, and insects making intense buzzing sounds that melded into one high, scratchy hum. And there were frogs, too. Mike wasn’t sure he’d ever heard a frog that wasn’t on a movie soundtrack. 

He listened to it all for a couple of minutes and felt the world slowing down; felt physically loose and free and unencumbered like he hadn’t since….when? 

“Harvey…”

“Yeah?”

“Will you marry me?”

“You’re so free and easy with your virtue,” Harvey shook his head in mock disapproval. “You could hold out, and do way better than a simple two bedroom on the water.”

They’d only walked through the house long enough to drop their things and change into walking clothes, but Mike had liked what he’d seen. Though they were called condos, the homes in the complex were detached; deep brown stained wood with peaked roofs and porches, and a shared back yard that faded away into the Adirondack woods. The front yard was a sliver of the lake with more lawn, a beach, and a dock about thirty feet long.

It looked like most of the homes were vacation properties: He hadn’t seen another person, and had a feeling he and Harvey would do their grilling and hanging out alone tonight.

“This place? It might be worth my virtue,” Mike joined him. “And then some, considering my virtue’s been around the block. I’ll have to insist on no pre-nup, ‘cause…I _need_ to own half of this if you dump my ass. Or maybe own _all_ of it, and you can have it for your measly six weekends a year.”

“You’ll change your mind in a few months. When it hits ten below zero out.”

"Ten…what?”

“Exactly,” Harvey put out a hand to ask for the water bottle back. “Beautiful right now, though, isn’t it?”

“When did you buy it?”

“Not long after I joined the firm. I needed…a getaway.”

“Don’t we all. Why’d you _buy_ one?”

Harvey’s lip quirked. Mike watched the snappy answer he’d planned to deliver fade away and something else replacing it: The defensive look he got when part of him wanted open up and the rest of him was telling that part to cut it the hell out.

“Isn’t ‘I needed it’ enough?”

There it was: a gentler version of ‘talk to the hand,’ maybe, but… ‘talk to the hand’ none the less. Mike felt a twisting sensation in his gut.

“No. No, it’s not enough,” he said it before he could think better of it. “I’m less than a day past telling my girlfriend about us, explaining to her in clear terms why I need both of you in my life. I think that earns me something in the way of opening up.”

Harvey looked away, back toward the trail and the house and for a second Mike thought he wasn’t going to get a reply at all but…

“It was pretty soon after I joined the firm. I was…struggling. It wasn’t an easy transition. And I was also dealing with having acted for the first time on the desire to be someone’s dominant. _That_ was …confusing. I’m told the technical term is ‘cognitive dissonance.’ I needed somewhere to think, and decide if the sex thing was only me venting frustration or if it and work were unrelated and …I don’t know… both okay.”

“And?”

“They are. Unrelated,” Harvey shrugged. “And okay. I’m good with who I am and what I want. And… I got a vacation home out of it.”

“Beats paying for some shrink’s weekend place,” Mike nudged him when Harvey looked less than amused. “Thanks. For the answer.”

“You’re welcome,” Harvey said it with extra weight on the words. The next few came of softer. “Mike, can you be patient?”

“With you?”

The ‘aren’t I always?’ part hung in the air, but if Harvey caught it he didn’t let it show on his face. Which was just as well, because now that he thought about it… it probably worked both ways, honestly.

“I know you took a chance, Mike, and I know it wasn’t easy but … I need to see how this shakes out before I get too comfortable. Because the time it took you to decide? It wasn’t a short time. I know that I nearly got fired, and…”

“Woah, wait, that’s not…” Mike tried to get a word in edgewise. “…it was wrong, the word that I chose this morning. I didn’t mean to say ‘job’ and I didn’t m…”

“It’s okay,” Harvey cut him off. Mike didn’t object because it wasn’t done angrily. “It really is. It’s … what we agreed on, going in. Right?”

“Maybe,” Mike said, “But that doesn’t mean….”

He struggled for the right words, but it turned out he wouldn’t need them; Harvey was leaning, reaching to cup a hand around the back of Mike’s head and pull him in. Mike felt himself gasp, looking up at Harvey’s eyes in time to see Harvey close his, their lips pressing lightly together.

They’d kissed a hundred times before – but never like this; spontaneous, not about gearing up for sex or winding down after it. Kissing to…what? Bond? Simply to touch.

Harvey took it deeper, but still so gently; urging Mike’s mouth open, barely flicking his tongue in, asking for Mike’s to come out and play. When he reciprocated, it sent something right through him; the way Harvey was kissing him loose and light and messy and…. oh….

…affectionate. Loving?

“What was _that_ about?” Mike asked when he got the chance.

He felt his face flushing when the question came out a whisper - embarrassed at a whisper being all he had in him right now.

“It was a ‘thank you,’” Harvey said, pressing a last, quick kiss to his mouth and then sitting back. “For coming back. Whatever happens, however short a time it may be…I want you to know, I’m glad you did.”

“It doesn’t have to be a short time. I’m sure there are people who make this kind of arrangement work for….”

“We should go,” Harvey was up, the water bottle back in his pack and him walking away in under three seconds. “If we don't get dinner started, we’ll be eating at midnight.”

Mike counted to ten, then followed.

He would have liked to stay - to watch the sun fall a while longer, but… Harvey was already practically out of sight. And he wasn’t sure there weren’t actual mountain lions around, prepared to hunt frogs. Or maybe the two of them.

“Hey…wait up…” Harvey didn’t say a word, but Mike noted he did stop. Did toss him a quick smile.

Mike was sure of a couple of things: That kiss never would have happened even a few months ago. And Harvey saying thank you? 

Something had shifted. 

That might be good. Maybe. But Harvey, and his tendency to pull the hell away when he felt a situation slipping from his control? Mike felt, as he walked, like maybe he wished he hadn’t pushed things quite so hard.

At least there was still tonight to enjoy. And tomorrow. Who knew what they might bring?


	6. The Edge

“Mind if I keep at this?” Harvey asked, his back to the headboard and a thick stack of folders lying on his lap. The pen in his hand was circling, swiping, jotting notations. “I can hit the light if it’s too much.”

“No. Have at it,” Mike slid under the same covers pooled around Harvey’s hips, having brushed and flossed and dug out his sleep shorts from their bag. “I think it’ll take a marching band to keep me awake.”

“Probably all the oxygen in the air,” Harvey said. For a second Mike thought he was teasing him about his display of contentment on the hillside earlier, until he heard that Harvey meant it. “You may dream more vividly than usual. It…happens.”

Mike digested the words and that tiny pause. ‘It happens.’ As in ‘to other subs I’ve brought here?’ He discarded it as jealous. Irrelevant. 

“I don’t need any help in the intense dreams department, that’s for damn sure.”

“I’ve noticed,” Harvey said, and Mike turned from his back onto his side, toward him. He noticed how Harvey’s eyes never left the paperwork, how his hand kept marking up the documents even after he’d broached it. “What’s that about?”

“Internalized fear, I think,” Mike said. “Over the ways my world could blow up. The usual justifiable, self-inflicted paranoia translating into bizarre dreams, semi-nightly.”

Harvey put the pen down. Looked at him as if he might say something back. Then he simply nodded, and picked it up again. But his eyes – they said a lot; that he got it.

Their evening had been great: Scotch on the rocks sitting on that long wooden deck, the air crisp enough to need a jacket. The sunset was as red and purple as Mike hoped for. Then there were steaks on a charcoal grill, asparagus in garlic butter, scalloped potatoes they only had to slide in the oven, and a second glass of Pinot Noir back on the deck after.

Still, for all the pleasures, it was notable how Harvey had reined things in after their conversation on the hike. They’d talked non-stop since – but about nothing much.

“There’s a brunch at the track,” Harvey said, now, a right turn Mike hadn’t seen coming. “State chamber of commerce. We bill a ton on government contracts, so…”

“Sure,” Mike slid back down. Harvey may be up for working, and thinking about work, and talking about work ‘til God only knew when but he was done. “I’m in. Obviously.”

“We’ll keep it short,” Harvey said. “Then we can catch some races from the stands.”

“Cool.” Mike settled into his pillow, into the mattress.

He could’ve told him how he’d never seen a horse race up close, and how much he was looking forward to sharing that with him. It had dawned, too, while he was flossing that this was the first time they were getting in bed together without sex being on the menu and that felt really good in its own, strange way. 

But he didn’t say it. He’d probably played the enthusiastic neophyte enough for one day. 

Mike drifted off to the sound of Harvey’s pen tip scratching along paper. Then he slept the sleep of the comatose. Like he hadn’t slept, ever.

~*~

“Damn it,” Harvey mumbled, half dropping and half flipping his razor into the sink. He reached for his shaving bag, searching up the tube of Chap Stick buried somewhere inside as he watched a streak of blood slide down the ceramic. “Great.”

It wasn’t a huge cut. It _was_ the kind that bled as if he’d sliced his chin open. 

He wasn’t sure if he’d woken up this anxious, or if the most recent email on his phone put him there. Except, of course he was sure. It was that email; the agenda and speakers list for this morning’s event.

He was busy stopping the gusher near his chin with the gel, fuming, and trying not to lose the cap – so he didn’t hear bed sheets sliding around or feet padding his way.

“Ah, wow,” Mike’s sleepiest voice, scratchy and thick. “That’ll leave a mark."

"Not the best timing," Harvey let Mike maneuver around to find his toothbrush and then he fished his razor out of the sink and went back to shaving. "Our ride’ll be here soon.”

"It’s brunch, though." Mike asked, searching up toothpaste. "No breakfast to make.”

"Yeah. About that; can you follow my lead? When you meet people, if I keep the introduction short...."

"Then don't speak freely. I know the drill. You have rivals here, too, huh?" Mike asked between swipes with the toothbrush. "You make frenemies everywhere, Harvey.”

"It's not like that."

"If it's not about work, then, is it... us? Are you worried they’ll figure it out?”

"It's not like that, either," Harvey found himself elbowing him out of the way the second Mike was done rinsing and then feeling bad about it. "Jesus, do you have to parse everything I say? Can we not talk this to damn death?”

"Oh ... kay," Mike said, but Harvey noticed how he didn't step away, how he held his ground. "Whatever that was about? It wasn’t about me, so…”

"No,” Harvey sighed. “It wasn’t.”

"Feeling edgy?” Harvey’s eyes were on the sink, rinsing his razor, so he felt as much as saw Mike take that half step up behind him, Mike’s bare chest pressing to his back, arms sliding around him. Mike’s softly open mouth pressed to the spot by his ear that he seemed to like to start with whenever Mike kissed along his shoulders. "I see you showered. You could jump back in and ... take it out on me. Your frustrations.”

"I don't _do_ that to you, and you know it!"

“Cripes, you are wound today. I was kidding…”

“No, you weren’t. That’s the second time since we got on the plane that you made a joke about me ‘taking things out’ on you and I … _don’t_. I _wouldn’t_ , Mike.”

“All right, hey…woah,” Harvey was splashing away the last of the shaving cream as Mike sputtered it, grabbing a towel and planning to head for the bedroom but he stopped when Mike got a hand on him. “You’re right. I … I think maybe I was yanking your chain when I said that. Both times.”

“Yes, you were. And I know I’m right.”

“Well, you always think you’re right but… this time you really are. I had a reason, if you’d like to hear it. It’s not a very _good_ reason but….”

“I talked it through with you - told you what I would do before we started yesterday and…”

“You did, you absolutely did…”

“ _All_ the times we’ve been together, _all_ the things we’ve done - I’ve _never_ pushed you to the point of saying stop. I know what you can take and I know when to…”

“Hey,” Mike got a hand on his shoulder and pressed in a way that asked that he please have the chance to get a word in edgewise. “Stop. I’m saying stop now. Let me explain? I jerked your chain… because I felt bad. It took me all those weeks to get up the nerve to talk with Rachel, and you were so…patient.”

“And that pissed you off, why?”

“You were _too_ patient. It didn’t seem to matter, Harvey, what I decided. You were glad to welcome me back but… I think I was trying to force emotion out of you, for once.”

“Don’t you have her for that?” Harvey saw Mike flinch at the words. “What are we here for? I thought you wanted a dom?”

“I do.”

“Great. But let me explain something you may not know; a dom-sub relationship almost always has a ticker on it. The day will come when you decide you’ve gotten what you can from me and that it’s not helping anymore. Then you’ll leave for good. That’s why I said what I said yesterday, Mike. I need to keep the lines clear.”

“Yeah,” Mike said, “I get it.”

Four words, but it felt like Mike was holding back many more and damn…this was confusing. Maybe it was a mistake, coming here. Bringing him here.

“We need to get ready,” Harvey headed for his room.

"I will be,” he heard Mike say behind him. “For the next few minutes, though? I'll be in your shower. Soaping up. Imagining you angry-fucking me into the faux marble wall, just so you know. I kind of have it in my head, now."

"It's not faux marble. It’s Italian marble.”

"Of course it is…."

~*~

Harvey saw Mike rinsing the shampoo from his head as he slid the glass door on the shower open. He watched him shudder at the cool air rushing in. 

“I thought you were in a hurry?” Mike cracked one eye open, but kept rinsing.

Harvey joined him, waiting, handing him the towel he’d brought when Mike was ready for it.

“I asked Sam to give us another hour….” 

“So… I’m not the only one with an AM screw on the brain?”

“Turn around.”

He watched him turn and finish up with the towel, tossing it out of the shower and into the sink.

“Is that mango I smell?” Mike asked. “No tongue for me, huh?”

Harvey slid his well slicked-up fingers over those ass cheeks and toward his hole, teasing. Mike huffed out a tight sound and almost fell, his feet barely catching on the porcelain, arms grabbing backward instinctively around Harvey at any awkward angle they could find.

“Do I have permission to prep you?” Harvey asked it against his temple, pulling him in tighter, fingers pressing deeper. “Do I have your permission to fuck you?”

“Are you ...kidding?”

“Not even a little. Say it, Mike. Do I have your….”

“Jeesus, yes... c’mon…you know you do.” Mike sounded somewhere between pissed and turned on, back arching as Harvey scissored with his finger, quickly replaced them with the head of his very ready dick and…. “Ooohhhhh….” 

He hadn’t been ready for that. Not so soon.

“Hold on,” Harvey offered, pushing again to be fully in him.

“To what? You?” The implication being ‘if you fall….’

“To this…” Harvey kept going, but grabbed Mike’s right arm, guiding it to the metal grab bar under the showerhead. “And that…”

Mike’s left hand found the grab bar on the near wall.

“What did you tell him?”

“Who?”

“The guy who installed these half way up the fricking shower wall?”

“I told him to mind his own business….” Harvey got a now-slicked left hand on Mike’s cock, stroking slow and firm and digging teeth into Mike’s shoulder as he fucked him, feeling Mike give up that last little bit and lean fully into him, hissing.

It was good he’d asked for the whole extra hour - they needed almost all of it.

“You were right about one thing…” Harvey said as they were on the bed again, working up the energy to get dressed. 

“What?”

“That did take the edge off.”

Harvey could just about face this day now. Hopefully.


	7. Doubt Creeps

“It won’t even phase him, you know? When he wrecks you,” Mike heard someone say. “He won’t hurt over it because he doesn’t _feel_.”

He had stepped outside the restaurant at the track where the brunch was being held; had spent the last few minutes on the fourth-floor balcony, standing in the sun and watching a race or two below him while Harvey worked the room some more. 

It took a few seconds to land that the guy was actually talking to him.

“Excuse me?” Mike felt an odd, disorienting jolt at something so ominous and unexpected coming at him on a beautiful day. Like the whole world tilted two degrees then righted itself. “Who the hell are you?”

The guy was his height, and around his age. A bit more built, with prettier features. He was dressed both more casually and yet more expensively; he was a five hundred dollar pair of jeans kind of person, apparently.

Mike thought he looked artistic – long arms, fingers, hair. He had big green eyes, and a jaded expression in them - like nothing surprised him.

“Jason,” he said, but did not hold out a hand. “Tell Harvey you ran into Jason.”

“Jason, I doubt your name is coming up between us at all,” Mike said. 

Mike did find himself turning a bit, and stepping slightly left, though, putting himself more fully between the two of them and the glass doors behind him. He did it half because he wanted to try to get a closer look at this guy’s state of mind, and half so Harvey wouldn’t spot them.

“We are here on _business_ ,” Mike hit the word hard. “Harvey and I are _colleagues_. I don’t know exactly what you’re suggesting but…”

“I saw you get out of the car together,” Jason said. His voice was very patient, like he felt no need to defend himself. He shook the ice in his glass around and tossed it back to grab a cube and chew at it. “There was half a second when you were shutting the door  
and he…looked at you and…”

“You always gauge relationships between people based on a glance?”

“Only when I’ve fucked one of them for a couple of years,” Jason’s voice held a touch more edge this time. “I know him better than anyone ever has or probably ever will, so don’t tell me you’re not…”

“I can’t imagine …” Mike’s felt himself going into ‘discredit the witness’ mode, feet shifting around like he might need to be ready to fight soon, resisting the urge to stab an index finger into the guy’s biceps. “Someone so loose-lipped, with zero discretion? Telling someone he’s never met how his alleged ex-lover is a heartless wonder? Who would ever be crazy enough to leave a bargain of a person like you, anyway?”

“Look, I get it – you don’t want to hear it. He got to you, too…” Jason gave him an ‘I surrender’ shoulder shrug and started to walk away. “You don’t know me, but… when you’re out of a job and out of a dom, lying on your sofa in your sweats for a month wondering what the hell just happened to your life… don’t say no one tried to help.”

~*~

“Earth to Mike,” he heard Harvey, and he jumped half an inch on the barstool.

The guy was gone. They’d left the track some time ago, and were sitting in Sam’s restaurant but … Jason was still in Mike’s head. 

“Sorry, I… I’ll go with the bacon and blue cheese burger. Sounds too good to pass up.”

“Excellent choice,” the bartender took their menus from them. “We’ll get the food up quick as we can; Sam said you only have an hour or so ‘til you have to be out of here…”

Harvey was pulling out his phone as he thanked him, and was texting someone.

“Are you getting nervous?” He asked Mike.

“What?”

“You’ll be home soon. So will Rachel. Are you worried?”

“A little, maybe,” he wasn’t, but went with the handy excuse.

“Have you heard from her this weekend?”

“She messaged me last night, after I was asleep. Said she and her mom were having fun - beaching it, hitting a spa. Said not to worry.”

“How do you feel about that? Only getting the one message? No calls….”

“I feel like I dropped some fairly heavy news on her and she’s dealing with it well.”

“Good,” Harvey barely looked up, and tossed the word off casually - like it was no deep concern to him but he was glad for Mike’s sake.

“What are you doing on that phone? Work?”

“No, I’m making arrangements with the jet company,” Harvey slid the phone back in his pocket. “Letting them know I don’t want any stewards on the flight back. They get the afternoon off – with pay.”

“Why would you….”

“Because I’m guessing you want me to drop you at your place as soon as we’re in the city. Right? You’ll want to see her tonight.”

“Yes. So?”

“So I have plans for the trip home.”

Harvey’s eyes left his to dwell on Mike’s mouth for a second and then flitted to Mike’s lap and Mike felt himself huff out a ‘you’ve gotta be kidding me sound. He leaned in to keep his response between them.

“Haven’t you made me come enough times for one weekend?”

“Who said you get to come this time?” Harvey apparently didn’t feel the same need to keep his voice down.

Mike looked around to confirm no one was watching them. Happily, the tables were full but the bar still was fairly empty.

“Leave ‘em wanting more, huh?” Mike asked.

He tilted his head to ask for Harvey’s gaze back and got it, but only for a second and then Harvey focused on his beer, face bland. He looked as if they’d just been talking sports or stock tips or something.

“That’s the idea, yes.”

~*~

“Stand up,” Harvey ordered, his voice tight.

They’d spent the whole time the plane was getting prepped and taxiing out onto the runway making out; him on Harvey’s lap, the armrests on the seats pushed up so they had room to press against each other.

Mike stood. 

There was a decent amount of space between rows on the plane, but it was still close; Harvey’s legs were between his, now, Mike straddling his knees, facing him, leaning lightly against the back of the front row seats that were directly behind him. 

Harvey had been on the brutal side with the sucking face, giving Mike his more biting, _taking_ kiss. Greedy. That was the word. Goddamned greedy.

It had him out of breath and both their bodies warming up fast; had Mike splaying his knees out, rubbing and pushing his own clothed hard-on against Harvey’s despite the warning that there would be no release for him, not without some suffering to come.

His head knew Harvey wasn’t kidding, but his body didn’t want to believe it.

The airplane had barely started to take off when Harvey ordered him up.

“Don’t I have to be buckled in? Tray tables up?” Mike asked as Harvey reached and started working open Mike’s shirt.

“It’s a private flight. You can do cartwheels in the aisle if you want. Do you always have to wear button downs, even on the weekend?”

Harvey looked turned on and annoyed - but then that was often how he looked once they got going. 

“Don’t bitch. I can’t pull off a V-neck like you. And you love taking my clothes apart.”

“I love taking _you_ apart. The buttons….are in my way,” Harvey, having gotten the shirt done, went to work on his belt, steady fingers reaching for Mike’s zipper. Tugging. “We’ve got less than half an hour….”

Mike rose on his toes a bit when a hand wrapped around him; sighed and breathed deep and hoped all the screwing they’d done the last two days would help him live up to the task.

“Harvey,” He cupped a hand over Harvey’s ear, fingers stroking his hairline as Harvey leaned in to take him in his mouth. To his surprise it didn’t get batted away. “You wouldn’t….ever….”

“Wouldn’t ever what?” Harvey muttered, but he looked almost as taken aback as when Mike had flashed him the accidental ‘shit, I love you’ look in his apartment the other morning.

“Nothing. Wrong time… I’ll ask you la….ohhhhhh, nooo, no way…” 

Harvey took him in, head dropping down quick and smooth; lips and then his warm, soft mouth sucking, tongue twisting and pressing and … there was no hope in hell. 

Mike only hoped the pilots didn’t hear his half-shouted _‘fuck me’_ when he came.

~*~

“You can call me later. If you need to,” Harvey said.

They were a few blocks from Mike’s apartment, in the back of Ray’s black car with the partition up; Harvey had used work chatter as an excuse for some privacy.

“I really think it’ll be fine,” Mike was loose against the seat – felt like he’d maybe need a nap before Rachel showed up.

“She’s not gonna want to….”

“No, thank God,” Mike chuckled. “She has a college friend in town, so we’re only doing dinner and then she’s meeting her and her fiancé for drinks. I won’t see her for a couple of nights, probably. Which is good, because… I’m tapped. Out. Done.”

“Glad that won’t be an issue for you.”

“Jeeesus,” Mike shook his head. “This was my filthiest weekend ever.”

“Well, we were making up for lost time, so…. what was it you were going to ask me? On the plane.”

It was such a hard right turn that Mike needed a second to respond.

“The guy who gave the speech - the opening thing at the brunch? He’s the reason you were so wound up this morning, isn’t he?”

Harvey looked very sorry he asked, and not inclined to answer him - but also like he know Mike hand nailed it too hard to ignore.

“He’s someone I …wronged. Accidentally, for the most part but…”

“God, tell me you never slept with him?”

“Excuse me? Shit, no, c’mon… he’s a …gargoyle. A wealthy one but a freaking…”

“Okay, okay…”

“…gargoyle, Mike. Louis is hot in comparison….”

“Then you bested him in court. Or you took something from him…” 

Mike knew the ‘thing’ was a ‘who’ and he knew who it was, but the stubborn center of him wanted to hear how Harvey answered.

“I haven’t always made the….best decisions. Can we leave it at that? ‘Cause it was a long time ago but it was bad enough that I still don’t talk about it. Not even with you.”

“Yeah,” the car stopped and Mike saw that Harvey looked miserable. He reached a finger to trace over the shaving cut he could still see traces of on his chin. “We can.”

It was quiet on his street after the car pulled away. It was five p.m.ish, and Rachel was only an hour or so out. Suddenly he was, maybe, a little nervous.

 _Text me either way …._ The message showed up on his phone screen as he opened the door, and he smiled. _Let me know how it goes…._


	8. Monday

One thing had kept Harvey hopeful in the three weeks it took for Mike to come back to him; it had been a slow, quiet process. He knew for a fact that if it all went to hell, this thing between them, it was more likely to happen fast. Which it did, over a single work week. 

The _way_ it did – that he didn’t expect. It ended up having zero to do with Mike’s other relationship. And that was kind of a surprise, too. 

**Monday**

“How was your weekend?” 

“Excuse me?” Harvey never stopped fixing his coffee. He did not look up. 

“I said…” He heard it in Louis’ tone – that he was studiously ignoring that Harvey was attempting to ignore him. “How. Was. Your weekend?” 

He watched, out of the corner of his eye, Louis opening the fridge and pretending to look around. As if he had something in there. As if Louis would ever deign to put actual food of his inside the salad-dressing-stained, overloaded, smelly communal coffee room fridge. 

“See, this is why I normally bring my own beverage with me if I’m in early,” Harvey took a sip and started for his office, Louis unfortunately in tow. “If I’d gone straight to my desk, we wouldn’t be talking right now. You wouldn’t have had a second to intercept me with ‘how was your weekend’ crap. Who told you that I was at the brunch yesterday?” 

“Luke Lowrey,” Louis watched Harvey sit at his desk and pull his computer keyboard in to log on. “And Dick McKenna.” 

“Figures. Two of the saddest toads in the pond; never liked Lowrey, and Dick is … an actual putz.” 

“They said you were all over the governor’s business development chairwoman like white on rice.” 

“White on… who even says that anymore?” 

“You’re not getting our state biz dev business, Harvey," Louis said, pulling up a chair and sitting too, arms crossed. "So forget it.” 

“Why the hell would I want it? It’s not my forte and it’s a lot of work for not a lot of money,” Harvey pushed the keyboard away. “It’s perfect for plodding, methodical, paranoiacs like you.” 

“Why did you go, then?” 

“Because Jessica asked me to. I told her if I went north, I’d spend a few minutes there on our behalf and if I didn’t… I wouldn’t.” 

“Jessica wouldn’t ask you to go on your weekend. She’d send an associate. Hell, that’s all it merited anyway unless there’s something…” 

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Louis, stop being a caricature of yourself. If you think Jessica's up to something then have the balls to go ask her. Or you can save yourself some embarrassment and believe me for once. She didn’t want to spend money for us to attend, and I was in the neighborhood. It’s that simple.” 

“I’m surprised you still have the place up there,” Louis had kicked back and gotten way too comfortable in that chair. “After everything that….” 

Harvey didn’t even have to look up; his glare at the keyboard, the way he was punching the keys harder stopped Louis flat. 

“Sorry,” Louis pointed a finger at the ceiling. “Cone of silence, right? I’ve never broken that, you know, in spite of everything that…” 

“Louis. Get out of my office.” 

“How was your weekend, otherwise?” 

“Are you frigging _kidding_ me?” 

“No, really? How was it otherwise? Lowrey said you had ‘some guy’ with you at the races. Someone new under your thumb?” 

“Nope. It was just Mike,” Harvey said, and thankfully Louis’ only reaction was to look mildly bemused. “Rachel was away. He was at loose ends, so he tagged along.” 

“You’ve never had me up for the weekend.” 

“And I never will. You’d hate it anyway; there are stinging insects, the wifi is spotty and there are barely any snobs. None, really, except a few people like you and me and you clearly know most of the crowd anyway, you’ve got half of them spying for you….” 

Harvey was going to give him another ‘get out of my office’ since the first one hadn’t taken, but then Mike’s head appeared in the doorway. 

“Louis, we have a ten a.m. Okay if we meet in your office?” 

“We do not have a ten a.m. I just checked my day and…” 

“And I just added it to your calendar. Per Jessica. I have to establish that books were cooked on a case that came in the door Friday. She pointed me right at you, so…”

“Fine. Ten….” Louis looked mutually annoyed and pleased at his help being called for as he pulled himself up and left.

Harvey felt as much as saw Mike still hanging in the doorway, standing there waiting until Louis was gone to say anything.

“So…” Harvey glanced away from his computer for a moment, long enough to see Mike looking rested and happy, leaning on the doorjamb. “No message last night. I take it all is well?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Mike shrugged and waved an apology. “After she and I talked, I grabbed some dinner and crashed in front of the TV. Meant to text you, but… fell asleep fast. Kind of worn out, you know? My dom fucked me brainless all damn weekend.”

“Now, what if Donna had walked up behind you and was standing there at her desk?”

“She didn’t. She isn’t,” Mike said, but there was a flicker of doubt in his voice and he turned ever so slightly.

“Made you look…”

“Gotta go. I’ll tell you more when we’re not…”

“….here. Yeah. _Not here_ would be good place to tell me about it.”

“Hi, there…” 

Donna’s voice, out of nowhere, was followed by Donna breezing in with an arm full of folders and her own AM caffeine in her free hand. They both jumped enough to make her jump too - Mike a good two inches but Harvey perceptibly as well.

“Jeeez….um….wow. Yikes….” Mike breathed out and walked away at the same time.

“Good lord,” Donna set down the folders and stood there reshuffling them, one handed, most important cases first while she drank her coffee. “What’s the matter with him? Jumpy, much? It’s not like I was sneaking up on you two or anything…”

“You did kind of seem to ….materialize,” Harvey pulled one of the folders, one he’d been waiting for, and flipped through it.

“That is _not_ one of my powers. But wouldn’t it be _fun_?”

“Not for your many victims, no. It wouldn’t be.”

“How was your weekend?”

“Uh-uh, forget it,” Harvey set his hand on hers to stop her re-organizing efforts, an ‘I’ll take it from here’ gesture. “We are not doing the ‘how was your weekend’ thing. Already did it once, didn’t want to then, either, and it didn’t go well, so….”

“Louis?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s what you get for not telling him about attending a work-thing he thought he should know about. You knew going in he’d pitch a fit.”

“How the hell did you….”

“That _is_ one of my powers.”

“You frighten me sometimes, you know? You really do.”

“Good,” she said with an appraising nod as she left, and Harvey wondered how the hell they’d kept it from her this long, he and Mike. And what the odds were of it staying that way.


	9. Tuesday

“We should have gone to The Modern,” Harvey poked at his food with his fork. “This isn't lunch. It’s purgatory on a plate.”

“Sorry,” Mike meant it, but he knew he didn’t look as deeply regretful as Harvey might like. “I heard this place was worth trying and it’s Restaurant Week. Mine’s pretty good; you should have ordered the Angus burger.”

A meeting with a client had taken them to Midtown West, away from their usual lunch places. Mike's pick won the coin toss but had clearly failed Harvey's taste test.

 “Any restaurant that _needs_ Restaurant Week... that should have been your first sign.”

"Order a martini,” Mike suggested. “You’ll forget you’re not in love with the food.”

“Good idea,” Harvey flagged down a waiter. “Not like we have anything this afternoon, anyway, beyond that in-house meeting; listening to Jessica break out the many ways we could maximize our billable hours….”

“That is _if_ she can get a word in over Louis whining about how no one appreciates him enough...”

The semi-monthly meeting to discuss firm business practices was a well-known drag.

“Make it two martinis,” Mike added between bites.

They got their order in, and Mike let some time pass with their forks and knives and the buzz of conversation around them the only sounds.

“Harvey, can I ask you something about last weekend?”

“Hmmmm?”

It was Harvey’s entirely distracted equivalent of ‘yes, what?’ and a sound that normally made Mike’s lip curl in a fond smile but …today he was distracted, too.

“Why didn’t you tell me Jessica asked you to go to the brunch? Sunday, I mean.”

“Why is this coming up now?"

He felt as much as saw Harvey snap to full alertness; he looked less than happy with the question, although maybe more concerned than annoyed. And that non-answer he’d given? That was all about stalling, about a few more seconds to gauge what was coming at him.

It kind of sucked knowing his ‘tells.’ But Harvey likely knew his, too.

“Louis mentioned it. Yesterday, when he and I were going over the books for the McMillan case. Well, he didn't mention it - he asked about it.”

“He is a frigging twelve year old. Isn't he?” Harvey sawed at his less than succulent pork chop. “What _exactly_ did he ask?"

“If you'd said anything about us going at Jessica's request. And he wanted to know if you seemed to be focusing on anyone in particular in the room. You know. Like courting a potential client."

"And you told him what?"

"The truth; I didn't see anything like that going on at all. It did make me wonder why you didn’t mention were going at her request, but, look, you don't have to explain if you..."

“I know I don’t have to. I don't owe _anyone_ an explanation, Mike, but if I don’t answer you it’ll turn into a ‘thing,' won’t it? And we don’t need that right now, you and I.”

“Forget it.”

“Jessica didn’t ask me to go to the brunch at all. I offered. I told her last week I'd heard some whispers of unhappiness from a couple of our clients, and I knew they'd have people at the event. Seemed like a chance to talk with them in a casual setting - out of town, where maybe they'd open up with little prompting."

"And you told Louis what you did so you wouldn’t have to sit through another verse of his ‘you’re always out to get me’ blues."

“Now you're catching on. I didn't tell _you_ because it doesn't _involve_ you. And if Louis had the emotional maturity of a head of lettuce you still wouldn’t know about it."

“I wasn’t…worried. I only …wondered.”

“Right. That’s why you looked so worried,” Harvey said. “Because you weren’t worried. Makes perfect sense.”

The waiter picked that moment to come back with their drinks. Both glasses were very full and the waiter was careful to set them down without spilling a drop so the whole thing took some time; enough for the bit of gloom the conversation seemed to have churned up to melt away, for the most part.

“Mike, did anyone at that thing on Sunday buttonhole you?”

Harvey sounded less cross after a sip of his drink, but he was toying with the glass stem.

“As in, what?"

“As in talking me down. Like Oliver Geidt, I mean: The man you knew I was not happy to have to see there. Did he say anything to you?”

“No, I never spoke with him,” Mike was relieved to be able to say. “I never even saw him again after you introduced us." 

Harvey nodded a silent acknowledgement and they both went on with their lunch.

Mike felt it, though; how sure he was Harvey had taken Jason from Geidt, leading to whatever it was that made for a very unhappy chapter in Harvey's life.

It wasn't lost on him, either, that this would be the best possible moment to tell Harvey about Jason following him out to that patio; how Jason had, in fact, dropped some poison in his ear that morning which had sunk into his brain more than he liked to admit.

But hell, no; there would never be a good time to tell Harvey that. Would there?

 ~*~

“Good, then it’s decided,” Jessica ran a pen under each point they’d agreed on in the business meeting. “We set up a group to look at our fees and what the market will bear. And on the pro bono cases, we keep the existing percentage of business but assign them all to our least senior hands - including re-assigning current cases.”

“Wait, woah….” Mike almost stood up, the last few words were such a surprise. “I don’t want to hand my current pro-bono case to someone else. We talked about making a change for the future, but….”

“Yes, and then we talked about the dollars to be saved by re-assigning the current cases. We _talked_ about it for nearly _ten minutes_ ,” Jessica tapped at her notebook with the point of her pen, dragged it in a wide circle around the pertinent notes. “And you didn’t seem to have any objection, so…”

“I’ve got a wrongful termination case that… I _committed_ to getting it done myself.”

“Then you promised something you couldn’t deliver. But you’ve got a legitimate out: Tell them your boss gave you with no choice – and remind them, by the way, they’ll still be extremely well represented -  on a level far above what they ever could afford if this firm didn’t commit to pro bono.”

“If you have a better idea, now’s the time….” Louis offered. “But it’ll have to be a whopper of an idea to save the dollar figure you heard….”

Mike opened his mouth to object and then shut it. It was hard to fight when he knew his head had been somewhere else entirely; lost in pained disbelief, his heart dropping into his shoes. He knew he was lucky no one had noticed the silent changes in his demeanor the last five minutes.

He hadn’t planned to drift off, but somewhere in all the _blah-blah-blah_ of cutting costs ...he had given in to a two-day long urge to Google in search of more information about Jason.

Searching “Jason” and “Saratoga” or “Albany” got him nothing. But searching “Jason” and “Saratoga Racing” got him a last name – Costa - and a picture that confirmed he’d found the right man.  Searching “Jason Costa” and Oliver Geidt got him an old magazine article that suggested Jason used to work for Geidt, had been from all appearances, his office manager. His right hand.

He’d held his breath when searching “Jason Costa” and “Harvey Specter” and let it out in relief when nothing showed up.

Then he’d thought to search “Jason Costa” and “Harvey Reginald Specter” and had nearly dropped his phone.

He didn’t click into the link: Only read the synopsis of the article, but the words there were enough to tell him what he’d see when he had time and privacy to click in later. Words like ‘assault and sexual battery’ and ‘unlawful restraint’ and ‘settlement terms not disclosed.’

Jesus. What the…. _hell_?

He’d stuck the phone in his pocket to prevent himself from giving in to the urge to read more- couldn't stand to think what he'd see, and with Harvey sitting four feet from him, shooting him a glance as Mike squirmed in his chair.

Jessica and the others might not have picked up on his distress but Harvey had, if only subliminally.

~*~

“Wow… I blew that big time,” Mike muttered it, he and Harvey walking down the hall a few minutes later. “I have some serious back peddling to do with the client now….”

“Sorry,” Harvey said it with a sympathetic huff. “So much for an uneventful business meeting. I had no idea that was on the agenda or I’d have given you a heads up.”

Mike didn’t really even want to think about the conversation ahead of him. But it was either that or think about what he’d read on that search page. It was the lesser of two evils, focusing on his client’s pending disappointment.

“There’s got to be some way to keep that one case…”

“Twenty minutes ago would have been a good time to fight for it. I wondered why the hell you didn’t? Anyway, give it another push with Jessica, who knows….” Harvey stopped as they got to his office door and gave him a fist tap on the arm as he headed inside. “Good luck with it.”

“Good luck with it? That’s it?”

“Yeah, that’s it. What else do you want? I have zero skin in that game, it’s pro bono. You’re at a point where you should welcome shedding mercy cases but …if you’re not, then fight for it. And Mike… enjoy your evening. Okay?”

“Are you freaking serious? Is that supposed to be…”

“Hey, calm down,” Harvey’s spine straightened, and he drew himself up a good two inches taller. “I meant it, for Christ’s sake.”

“Okay. Look… I know we have to keep things… in their compartmentalized boxes, but _sometimes_ , Harvey, you....walk when maybe it’d be good if you showed some….”

“ _Sometimes_ you have to put your big boy pants on,” Harvey turned for his desk. “Save us both a lot of drama, Mike, and try it." 

Mike watched him go, hoping for a look back, maybe; even an annoyed one would have been welcome, would have said Harvey wanted to see how his words had landed. 

He didn’t get one, though. Harvey just left.

~*~

“Where is he?” 

“Where’s who?” Mike looked up from his computer screen with eyes bleary from Excel sheets full of financial reports, picking through them for cost-cutting alternatives to present to Jessica.

He’d been seconds away from booting down and getting out of here, from heading to see Rachel and now…. a very pissed off Louis was standing there glowering in front of his cubicle.

Great.

“Harvey, that’s who. That goddamn lying, cheating fucker, where is he?”

“He went home ten minutes ago. He’s probably still en route, call him on his cell ….”

“Call him? I’ll go over there. To his place. Kick his ass from one end of…”

“You won’t kick his ass, Louis. Not ‘cause you wouldn’t like to, but because you physically… can’t. What the hell's going on now?" 

“He took it. He took the tourism board advertising account from me.”

“And that would be….”

“The most profitable of the contracts we have with the great State of New York. That’s why he towed your ass to the track Sunday: It wasn’t a weekend away, it was ‘take Louis’ best, easiest, most lucrative account away from him’ and…”

“Woah, slow down… tell me. Why would he even want that? It doesn’t sound like his…”

“Why, Mike, is because it involves serious amounts of free-flowing money even in a bad year. And connectedness. As in millions of dollars annually in and of itself, and referrals to private clients who bring along even more. And they’ve been my account since you were in frigging high school, all right?”

“Well if they’ve been in your pocket so long, how could Harvey manage to…”

“Don’t you dare blame the victim. He told them … he said I’m _unbalanced._ He put a fake bug in their ear suggesting I’d spent time in a rubber room and…”

“That's...absurd. Harvey wouldn’t…”

“Fuck you, ‘Harvey wouldn’t,’ are you that stupid? He would and he did, and they bought it ‘cause he sold it with his big cow eyes and a frown of mock concern for my sanity and…”

“Well in his defense, Louis, it sometimes is hard to tell if…”

The speed with which it happened was the most shocking thing; how Louis stepped in and kicked the corner of Mike’s group of cubicles so hard they jolted, creaking like the partitions may split.

It was a hard to discount: No one, Mike thought, got that angry without believing they had good reason. Not even Louis.

“Deep breath, all right?" Mike sat back, hand up half in self-defense, half a warning to chill the hell out. "Are you sure about this?”

“Do I look unsure? The head of the group called to tell me and was very polite about it. Very regretful. Hoped I would understand and appreciate that a change in representation would bring a 'healthy change in focus,' for me, too. Good for me... bullshit."

“You should wait until you talk with him,” Mike said, “Wait until tomorrow. Talk with Harvey and then if….”

“You’re not immune, you know,” Louis gave that tight, knowing nod of his; lips pursed and face red. “You two being butt buddies doesn’t mean he won’t leave you face down with tire tracks on your back someday.”

“Ummm…. what did you call…” Mike half laughed, half panicked – then relaxed when he saw Louis’ word choice had no deeper meaning.  “Do you want to go get a drink? If it’ll help…. I’ll go with you, Louis. I will. I have an actual date with Rachel and I’ll be completely honest: delaying that to hang out with you is the last thing I want to do, but….if it'll help, I will.”

“Go. Enjoy your date,” Louis said, and the anger drained out of his voice leaving him sounding hollow and tired.  “Enjoy your life while you have one. He won’t miss a beat, you know? When he screws you over, too; he won’t feel a thing.”

It sent a shiver through Mike – the same words punctuating his Tuesday night that he’d heard out of another man's mouth on Sunday.

Both bitter mouths, to be sure, but….

It was a long walk from the building to the curb, and a long wait for a car. His mind was all over the place during his silent ride across the park; the rain hissing under the tires, windshield wipers slapping and the air in the car thick with humidity making him feel claustrophobic. Suddenly Mike couldn’t wait to see Rachel; to take her to dinner and go back to her place and shut out the rest of the world for a few hours.

Still, as the car pulled from the curb he took out his phone – and he clicked the link.


	10. Wednesday

It wasn’t a surprise for Harvey, not seeing Mike first thing the next morning. He knew he had gone straight to court, pushing for one their cases to be moved forward and Harvey had a deposition to handle at the office. But when he only got a text announcing Mike had been successful? When one o’clock came and went without even one sighting of him? 

Well, that was unusual. 

“Hey,” Mike picked up on the third ring of his desk phone. 

“You sound tired. Did your girl work you over last night?”  

Harvey figured he might as well go there; start to see how this ‘sharing Mike’ thing was going to work for Mike. It had crossed his mind he might have to get used to having notably less of his time and energy.  

He knew the thought wouldn't have bothered him months ago.  

“No,” a chuckle in the background. That was good sign – Mike wasn’t wound up; not about the situation and not about the question. “We were both kind of beat. Ordered in. Watched a movie. Fell asleep.” 

“How’d it go with Jessica? You get your pro-bono case back?”

 “She didn’t say no, but she didn’t say yes,” Mike did sound tired. “She’s considering it.”

No, that wasn’t it. Not tired. He sounded … low. 

“Listen, Harvey…” 

“If you’d rather postpone tonight…” 

“No. I don’t want that. But can I come over earlier? Seven thirty?” 

“Sure,” Harvey debated whether to ask the question on his mind, but Mike filled in the blanks for him unprompted.  

“I don’t think I can stay. I’ve got an early breakfast thing tomorrow and…” 

“Not a problem,” Harvey saved him the effort. “Staying isn’t mandatory. You know that.” 

“Yeah, I do. My …my cell’s ringing – gotta…” 

“Go get it.” 

“…go. Bye.”

 

 ~*~ 

 

“Nice highlights,” Harvey gave a chin jut in the direction of Donna’s hair when she popped into his office mid-afternoon, cup of frozen yogurt in her hand. “Didja get ‘em at lunch?”

 “Huunh…” Donna said around her spoon. Then she silently scooped another bite, eyes narrowing. 

“Huunh? That’s it? I compliment your style, I don’t criticize you for taking a two-hour long lunch or for not bringing me back ice cream… and all I get is ‘huunh?” 

“It’s yogurt. And I’m confused.” She looked it. “You’re in a good mood.”

 “Well, yeah,” Harvey said. “I’m having a good day. Is that all right?” 

“Absolutely. But normally your state of 'upbeat,' 'in a funk' or 'royally pissed' is much more in synch with your work-husband’s mood. You’re always within at least a few degrees of each other.” 

“What are you talking about?”   

Harvey tried to hit the right note of disinterested; the last thing they needed was Donna catching an actual whiff of them.  

“Mike’s moping. Hard," Donna scraped at the paper bowl to get the last drops of her treat. "I caught puppy dog eyes on his face, before he saw me walk by and composed himself.” 

“You read too much into things. Have you considered that?” 

“Don’t be ridiculous; I read things perfectly, and you know it. Why are you deflecting?" 

Ooops. 

"I'm not. Why are you _snacking_ in my office and nattering on about Mike?"

"Don’t you wonder why he’s moping?” 

“No,” Harvey said.  “I don’t.” 

“I’ll get it out of him,” Donna's voice exuded casual certainty as she turned to go. 

“Fifty bucks says you don’t,” Harvey countered.  

“You’re on.” 

It seemed like a wise bet. If Mike's mood was about them, she’d get nothing out of him; Harvey would have some additional pocket cash, and a clue that something was up.  If it wasn’t about them and Mike spilled his guts….well, it was only fifty bucks.   

And he wouldn't have to worry that maybe Mike was changing his mind again. 

 

~*~ 

 

“Tell him,” Mike breathed it out, doing a half-pacing, half-shaking-himself-out kind of thing in front of Harvey’s door. “Ask him about it…you _have_ to _ask_ him about this….” 

Harvey realized he was on the way up - but still, he always waited for Mike’s knock, every time. He never was there first, the door open for him. Mike tried not to think about what that might say and lifted his hand, knuckles curling and nerves singing. 

Geez this was… _hard._ So hard. But if he didn't _tell_ him about Jason, if he didn't _ask_ him about that article and what it said ...

How could he be with him tonight, if he didn't?

“C’mon in…” Harvey was there fast once Mike finally did knock; was looking at him in a way that suggested he was assessing something. Like he’d felt it earlier, the bit of distance Mike knew he couldn’t keep out of his voice. 

 It wasn’t a cold look Mike was getting, though; it was warm, for Harvey. The hand on Mike’s wrist was warm, too - strong, tugging him in and then leaving his wrist to press against Mike’s chest and push him to the door as it closed. 

And just like that he knew he wouldn’t tell him. Or ask him. Mike couldn’t; not right now, not in Harvey's apartment like this.

“Wait...” he said, giving Harvey a press back with his own hand.

Harvey had obviously been about to reach in and go to town on him; he waited patiently, though, planting light, wide kisses on Mike’s mouth, his face instead.

“What?”  He asked Mike in between them.

“Are you planning to punish me? For the plane ride; for coming when you said not to?”

 “No,” Harvey stopped tasting, letting his hands run over Mike’s sides, starting to toy with the process of pulling his shirt apart.  “I came up with a better idea.” 

“Oh … good. Thank you.” 

“Wait ‘til you see what we _are_ doing,” Harvey’s eyes brightened and Mike felt a first teasing ache of arousal kicking in. “You might wish we’d gone with a spanking. Or the flogger.” 

“No,” he said, “I won’t. I can't...deal with that. Not tonight.”

 Happily, Harvey didn't appear to catch the relief Mike heard in his own voice.

“Is that all? Is that why you wanted to start early?” 

It _wasn’t_ why, but it would have to do. 

“I didn’t want to… waste your evening. I know you don’t like to _play_ until a punishment’s out of the way, so if we weren’t going toplay then I figured….” 

“Well, that’s thoughtful but,” Harvey stopped in mid-sentence as Mike shivered involuntarily under his wandering, caressing hands and fingers. “Mike what’s wrong?” 

“Nothing.”

 “Nice try. What’s _wrong_?”  “

"Nothing… that should interrupt our night. Can we leave it at that?” 

“You’re sure?” 

“Yeah. I just need …” Mike blurted it. “I don’t care exactly what we do, but… I need to not have room in my head to think about anything. Does that make sense?” 

“It’s most definitely my plan.”  

“Kiss me? Really hard?” Mike said, looking up at him but not quite able to meet Harvey's eyes.

“I was _trying_ to.” 

~*~ 

“Let go…” 

“Of what?” Mike followed the silent cue he was being given; Harvey’s arms pulling him to him, urging him to scoot closer. He leaned fully against him, Harvey sitting with his own back to the pillows lining the headboard of his bed. 

“Whatever it is you’re still holding in,” Harvey said, and Mike felt a soft, sideways press of lips just above his right ear, then a soft bite to the very top of it. “Sure you’re ready?” 

Harvey had Mike stripped naked, but had kept on his own boxers – a sign he planned take it slow.  They hadn't done edging much; he only rarely got told he needed Harvey’s permission to come, and even then he mostly he got a ‘go’ whenever he was ready.

“I'm very sure...” He did as ordered again; breathed deep and let it out slowly, relaxing against that familiar, broad chest, focusing on the comforting sensation of warm skin on skin. “But thank you…sir.” 

Normally some slow, gentle attention from him would be novel and welcomed, but tonight it wasn’t what he needed; scrambled brain full of _ohhellyessss_  would be a lot more helpful. Happily, Harvey seemed ready for that, too.

“Hands on each thigh, palms up.  No… relax your fingers, your elbows. Yeah, like that..." Harvey threaded a long swath of PVC tape under Mike's left leg and was wrapping it up, over his left forearm and wrist. He looped it around twice more, pressing the edges together until Mike couldn’t move his arm an inch from his leg; could barely make a fist and certainly couldn't do a thing else with his hands. Then he got to work doing the same on his right side.

Mike could struggle all he wanted, now, but he was going nowhere - not until Harvey released him and _that_ was more like it: Mike felt a strong, deep, ache begin to grow and spread through him; down his back, across his shoulders, a tingling at the base of his spine. It would be everywhere, soon; would make his head go hazy,  make everything recede except for what Harvey was doing to him.

"How long? Do I have to last?" 

"Not putting a timer on it," Harvey said, hands wandering over Mike's chest and abs, left thumb making circles over one nipple. His right hand dropped to lightly stroke Mike's semi-erect cock, to ghost his fingers through Mike's pubes and trace his hips and thighs until Mike shivered. "More like three rounds. Hold on through the first two, and…”

"We’re not boxing, Harvey; we're fucking. At least I hope..." 

"Eventually, yes. _That’s_ round three. If you make it there." 

Mike had noticed the items to their right: the neoprene-covered prostate vibe with the slightly flat slant to its head; a leather cock ring with a quick release snap; more PVC tape that might or might not get used. There was also a small bottle of scented lube, which meant Harvey had no intention of giving Mike his mouth at all - thank goodness, or he didn’t have a prayer of lasting, never did when Harvey ate him alive.

"I'll tell you when I’m close…” Mike murmured as Harvey slicked him slightly and urged his knees up, heels on the bed, wrapping the studded leather ring around him under his ball sac.

“You do that,” Harvey said, pressing the snap together, feeling at the sides of the ring to make sure it wasn’t too tight.  “Loud as you'd like. Comfortable? Not too…”

“No, it's fine...” Mike said, his breathing deepening at Harvey’s palm wrapping around him, gripping, squeezing, and then starting to slide base to tip and back. His body already wanted to push in time with the strokes as they got faster, deeper. It felt awkward, trying to move bound as he was - and he knew what the sight of it, him struggling, always did for Harvey. “Hell,  yeah… oh, _yeah_...….”

The cock ring made his dick swell and throb that little bit extra, and he felt Harvey noticing it- pausing his strokes every so often to play; to finger and trace at the veins standing more prominently than usual, thumb sliding over the wet head and then going back to those deep, deep tugs and twists again.

 _Jesus,_ he would be sore tomorrow, but it'd be worth it later when that ring got popped off and he came like a frigging rocket.

Mike held in his sounds at first, as long as he could ride the waves without feeling like he would go over the top. He let them go, though, when he got close - a choked off one at first, then a longer moan. He felt Harvey's hand working him faster; no mercy. Harvey added a stronger twist, reaching with his other hand to tease the slit with a finger, to twist the head while he kept jerking him, too, and...too much...

"No...no, _please_....don't, I _can't_ , I'll....." Mike pressed with his heels, so close to losing it, body dancing in Harvey's arms - then collapsing when Harvey stopped suddenly. 

"You've got this," Harvey shifted, moved them both enough to reach in and get his mouth on Mike's neck, his shoulders - to suck and bite and distract him while Mike twitched in his hand, gulping in fast, shallow breaths. "So good; you're doing so good..."

He didn't think of himself as someone who actually experienced subspace, but Mike realized during round two maybe there was some of that happening; lying on his chest, forehead planted into the bed, the vibrator set on low touched the spot that lit him up like that Christmas tree on TV -- and he couldn't get a word out. Not one. Only sounds, wordless begging for Harvey to _stop_ , to _never_ stop, to turn it higher and press it _harder_ , please, _please_....

He had no idea how long he rode it; that was what made him realize later that he'd kind of left the room. He only knew he'd succeeded when the vibe stopped whirring and the rest of the world slowed to a stop but his body was still thrumming and aching for release. Then Harvey was turning him over, was taking him, arms guiding Mike's legs up and over Harvey's shoulders, fucking him slow and deep, whispering words of praise and encouragement, murmuring 'let go, let go now, gonna come when you do, make me come, Mike, c'mon....make me...'

Mike _did_ remember shouting as he lost it, and the long, deep waves of pleasure that were as strong as he'd expected them to be. Then nothing, again, until now; Harvey already out of him, behind him and pressed to his back.

"What did you say?" Harvey was laughing under his breath, but it was a slightly scandalized, almost concerned sound.

_You wouldn't hurt me, would you? You wouldn't ...ever...hurt me?_

Oh, God; he'd said it, not thought it.

"I didn't, did I?" Harvey was climbing over him rather than flipping Mike, was pulling in a pillow to lean on, to get slightly over him, tipping Mike back, his voice gentle and probing. "Have I ever? I mean beyond, you know...what we discussed?"

"No..."

"Then what made you ask me that? You don't _want_ me to..."

"No, of course not. It didn't mean anything. We're good, I swear."

"Yeah?"

"I think ...I was out of it. For a second."

He was back now, though; back enough to see the concern on Harvey's face behind his mollified relief.

Mike moved enough to reach in and kiss him - glad that Harvey accepted it; pulled him close and kissed him back, and the moment passed.

 ~*~

Mike stepped more fully under the shower head, changing the setting on it to ‘hard as rocks’ and letting the water hit his the back of his neck straight on. It felt so good pelting his worked-over muscles, the hot water sliding down his still blissed-out body. Add it to all the endorphins still rolling around inside, and he thought he might be at risk of falling asleep in the cab ride home.

Harvey had been in and out of the shower quickly; was back in his room straightening up already.

This night should be all win, Mike thought as he soaped up once more; nothing but relief. It _would_ have been a week ago. But now, memories of what he’d read in that article were cutting through the good feelings – the words weighing on his mood, playing on his doubts.

_Jason Costa states defendant forcibly entered his apartment …tied and gagged …drugged and held him ... thirty hours.  Plaintiff suffered contusions, internal bleeding…_

Mike tried to imagine the hands that had given him so much pleasure causing thirty hours of pain, instead. 

_…bruising to his throat and face..._

Inflicting cruelty.

_Complainant doesn't deny a consensual relationship, but alleges he had ended it. The plaintiff ignored him... pleas to stop .... to release him...._

Harvey had _paid_ him; that was the worst part, the thing that felt most damning; he'd settled the case, it said. 

_The settlement amount was not disclosed._

 

  ~*~ 

 

“You still feel like you’re a hundred miles away.” 

Harvey was standing in front of him, hands on Mike's hips, their foreheads touching as Mike waited by the elevator yards from Harvey's apartment door.

“I’m sorry. I know,"  it had been a while, and the car wasn't coming. Mike pressed the button again in case they'd forgotten. It was a possibility at this point; they were used to curling up in bed together after, talking until they drifted off. They were kind of replicating that now, but standing up.

"Mike, you're not... rethinking things? Are you?"

"I'm not thinking at all," Mike said, and that was the truth. "I can't. Not now."

The elevator arrived. Harvey pulled him in and gave him a long squeeze - an actual hug goodbye and when had he ...ever, outside of bed or on the way to it?

“G'night, Mike.” 

Then he was headed away from him -  and just like yesterday, there was no look back.

~*~ 

It was a walk from Harvey’s building to a busier cross street where he could catch a cab home, and the cool night air cleared Mike's head – for better or for worse.

He walked the last couple of minutes of it with his phone in his hand, looking at the story again. Looking for something that would explain it away; but if that something hadn't been there before, it wasn't going to magically appear now, was it?

He knew all he’d done tonight was delay the inevitable. He'd have to ask him about it - or dig around and find out more for himself. If he did that.... maybe he'd never have to discuss it with him, ever. Where to start, though?

 “Please,” He thought as he dropped into a cab. “Let there be more to the story.” 

 


	11. Thursday

They would all remember Thursday for a while, despite their best efforts. Not only Mike and Harvey but Louis, Donna, Jessica, Rachel and Scottie. 

And everything started going off the rails early.

~*~

**9:00 am**

“Aw, hell…” Mike muttered.

He’d heard it the second he rounded the corner to hand Donna her coffee. He hoped he was wrong, but now he could both hear and see it.

“I thought that was dealt with yesterday?” he said, head jutting toward the conference room. “Guess not?"

 _That_ was the distinct sound of muffled shouting from behind the glass; Harvey and Louis going _at_ each other, almost coming out of their chairs, shouting and red-faced. Jessica was sitting back with her arms crossed, her face a patient blank as she collected evidence from their spat-out anger.

”They couldn’t 'run to mom' yesterday…” Donna gave him a thank you nod and took the coffee. “She was out of the building or in meetings. Louis pounced on her before she even put down her purse this morning, then Harvey got called in. So… you know what it’s all about?” 

“You _don’t_ know?”

“I don’t always know _everything,_ ” Donna shrugged. “That’s why I have …the help. You know: People like you.”

“The _help_?”

“It was a joke. Relax,” She sipped and nodded toward the conference room. “And while you’re at it, fill me in.”

“Tuesday night, Louis came roaring by while I was working late. He was...just about that angry," Mike nodded toward the conference room. "He said Harvey stole his top client in Albany..."

"Huh," Donna shrugged. "Thought that was old news, no?"

"I don't know. All I know is that Louis claimed Harvey won them over by telling them Louis had been, um… out of commission for a brief time. In the happy house, or rehab or...something like that.”

“Nooooo…” Donna sounded half amused, half scandalized. “Harvey wouldn’t do that. No way.”

“You don’t think so?” Mike leaned the heel of a hand on Donna’s desk, eyes on Harvey seated in profile to him, looking unimpressed at Louis’ ranting. 

“Well…if he felt it was critical for the firm? I dunno… maybe he would,” Donna shrugged. “Harvey makes his own way and his own money, so if he did something that drastic you can bet the end game involved more than picking up a client.”

“How can you be so sure?” Mike whispered, and realized he was talking to himself not her.

“I’ve known him a long time,” Donna turned and got busy with workday routine; firing up her computer, unlocking her desk, her body language saying he was welcome to stay but she had to get going. “And if you don’t have trust in someone… you don’t have _much_ with them. Do you?”

It was as gentle a reprimand as she’d ever handed him.

~*~

**10:20 am**

“Mike, you’re being uncharacteristically silent about this,” Jessica’s voice caught his ear, drew his eyes up from Harvey’s office floor. “What are you thinking?”

Damn it. Damn, damn… _crap_. That’s what he was thinking.

It was the worst possible time to be stuck inside his own head, wondering to himself about the mechanics of trust and doubt; wondering if he should call the reporter who’d written that article about Harvey and Jason Costa years ago…or if that was a really bad idea? 

They were gathered in Harvey’s office; Mike, Jessica and Louis, and the associate handling the case she was asking his opinion about.

“You know me,” Mike was eighty percent sure they were still debating the merits of asking the client to pursue a settlement. He could have missed a turn in the conversation, though. “You know what my gut instinct is at times like these…”

“I do,” Jessica’s smile widened a touch, and Mike could breathe again. “But it’s nice, occasionally, when your boss has thrown you a bone and given you your pro-bono case back to stick with her on the next couple of things that come up.”

“Understood. If I actually have a vote on the matter...." Mike dared a glance at Harvey - saw his barely-veiled concern at Mike’s distractedness. “You’ve got mine.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Jessica said. “There’s our tie-breaker. So now, what kind of offer do we make?”

The argument between Harvey and Louis appeared to be settled; enough that they could sit here with the appearance of being on decent terms. Louis still looked stung, though. There hadn’t been time to get a deep sense of how it was resolved, because Mike only had a few seconds with Harvey in the hall between meetings. 

"As long as he and I work together?" Harvey had shrugged, face loose with lack of concern. "Things like this will happen. It’s nothing to worry about. I’m not sure why you even _are_ worried?”

“Did you really tell them Louis lost his mind?”

“Of course not,” Harvey had fought back a grin. “It’s possible I didn’t… disabuse them of what they’d heard through the grapevine. Who knows where stories like that start? You’d be amazed what’s come back to me; what people have claimed I’ve said or done.”

He’d said it with a wink, a glancing, sideways arm nudge and a stare that lasted a beat longer than necessary. The wink was possessive. His tone had a note of ‘can’t wait to get you alone again’ and the stare? It made a quick shot of desire fly through Mike - made him wish they were alone, too.

Thankfully, other things demanded their attention, then. And now? Mike had lost track of the meeting for a second time in five minutes.

Donna popped her head in the doorway as Mike was refocusing yet again.

“Yes?” Jessica looked less than pleased.

“Mike?” Donna appeared exasperated, like she didn’t feel she had an option but to interrupt; made a ‘phone call’ gesture, thumb by her ear and pinkie crooked. “You need to take this. It’s a Jason Costa - says he's returning your call.”

Mike thought back on that moment later, and was amazed he got any words out at all – what, with the floor falling out from under him.

“Donna, I have…no idea what it’s about. Can you take a message?”

He had to look straight at her to avoid making Jessica or Louis wonder why he _wasn’t_ looking at her. Which meant he had to sweep his gaze past Harvey on the way, while doing everything in his power not to actually connect with Harvey’s eyes.

Mike did see Louis’ face, though, and _wow_ , the look of horror. Louis _knew_. Jesus, whatever was or wasn’t true about Jason and Harvey, Louis knew.

Jessica didn’t. At least she didn’t seem to recognize Jason’s name; she had less than zero reaction, was busily looking back over her notes. And Donna? She didn’t seem to know his name, either. But now…. she knew there was something up, something that had made Louis look worried for Harvey an hour after they’d been at each other’s throats.

Which meant that, unlike Mike, she had seen Harvey’s face and he must look… oh, God…what? Crushed? Betrayed? Murderous, maybe.

“I tried to get rid of him,” Donna said. “I hung up on him twice, but he keeps calling back…”

“I’ll get it,” Mike was up and out of the room.

He brushed by her more roughly than he meant to, only because he couldn’t feel his feet. 

~*~

“Where are you?” Mike gritted the words into the phone. “Tell me, and when I get to you I’m going to….”

“I was gonna leave a message,” Jason’s voice was heavy. Drunk, maybe? Drugged? “Ask you to call me back. ‘Cause I don’t think you really heard me Sunday and I wanted to make sure you… _get_ it. You know? What a cold, calculating bastard he is. How much he’ll mess you up. Then your receptionist said you were in a meeting with him and…”

“You’re a whack-job,” Mike felt how true it was as he said it, and he shivered despite the angry heat building on his skin.

“I’ve seen him around here; in town, at the track,” Jason droned. “Mostly alone, or sometimes with… her. Or someone new. None of them felt like anything serious. But then on Sunday you got out of that car and… the way you _looked_ at him, when you thought he wouldn't see...”

“You’ve been saving this _up_?”

“Sure. It’s a dish best served cold, right? He’ll never believe you – that you didn’t call me. It’s almost too easy, screwing with Harvey’s head; he’s already so sure the whole goddamned world’s out to get him.”

“If you ever call me again, or do… anything to harass either of us,” Mike took a deep breath to keep from going off the rails. “I’ll make you so sorry. I will.”

He set the phone down gently, didn’t bang it – didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. 

Then he turned around from his desk ready to go in search of Harvey and saw Louis standing five feet away, frowning deeply. 

“Louis, don’t…”

“He’s not here,” Louis grabbed his arm as Mike tried to pass. “Jessica wrapped the meeting and Harvey got up and…walked. As in, he left the building.”

“I’ve gotta…” Mike tried to move again. “I have to go find him.”

“No, you don’t… _gotta_ ….” Louis said, hand still around Mike’s forearm and who knew Louis was so strong? “Not now. He probably went to the gym; is either running or punching a bag. He’ll come back; if he doesn’t, it’ll get noticed - him disappearing on our busiest day of the week.”

“Louis…you don’t understand…”

“C’mon,” he let go of Mike and turned on one heel, and Mike debated taking off for the elevators. “My office. Now. Trust me, you’ll be glad you listened, later.”

~*~

**10:42 am**

“Jason approached you, correct? When you were in Saratoga last weekend?” Louis asked, standing with his arms folded. Mike just nodded from where he’d chosen to sit, one knee bouncing, his heel tapping anxiously. “And you never called Jason, did you?”

“Of course I didn’t. But I also didn’t tell Harvey about him cornering me like he did. I was going to but…I didn’t know where to start. What to ask him, first.”

“It can be very… uncomfortable,” Louis said, his voice turning gently reflective. “knowing something about a colleague that you don’t want to know. Supporting them even when you don’t really understand their… lifestyle.”

It would be amusing, Mike thought, watching Louis pause and try to formulate how to say more without saying too much – if it weren’t, oh, _bone-deeply_ embarrassing. He felt his face flushing and huffed out a ‘stop’ sound.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to…”

“There’s no reason to be put off by it or to look at Harvey differently…” Louis was on the verge of pacing, hands going to his pockets. “Hell, the American Psychological Association says if it doesn’t create emotional stress, there’s nothing…unhealthy about…that …uh… predilection.”

“My God, Louis, stop. Unless you want my head to explode, stop talking.”

“Oh,” Louis said, and nothing more. Mike looked at him and saw realization blooming; that Mike didn’t need anything about Harvey explained to him and why. “I see. Wow.”

“You were the one he called, weren’t you?” Mike’s own brain, thankfully, took a right turn and so did the conversation. “When it happened and Harvey was arrested.”

“Nothing _happened,_ Mike, except Jason paying someone to cut, bruise, and otherwise abuse his own body badly enough to get Harvey suspected and put in cuffs. But yeah; Harvey needed a lawyer,” Louis shrugged. “He couldn’t get Jessica involved- he told her as little as possible, and she agreed to leave it be if he both wasn’t guilty, and he made it go away.”

“That’s why Harvey paid him off,” Mike felt it all falling into place. “He knew the guy was nuts, but if he got him to sign an agreement that would shut him up forever…”

“Except the guy’s so nuts there’s no shutting him up forever. So we keep an eye on him. I knew he’d started working for the racing association, but I’ll bet Harvey didn’t or he’d never have gone there Sunday - not even to poach my client.”

Louis sounded pissy; was staring off at nothing in a way that suggested he still might like to wring Harvey’s neck. It made Mike shake his head in amazement.

“Why’d you help him?” He asked. “How is it you two can screw each other over on a semi-monthly basis, but…”

“Listen,” Louis shrugged. “As long as he and I work together, things like last weekend will happen sometimes. We still circle the wagons when the threat’s from the outside.”

“Harvey didn’t do a damn thing wrong,” Mike said it to himself, barely realized he was saying it out loud. “He didn’t hurt Jason.”

“Of course not,” Louis looked at him like Mike had sprouted a second head. “How can you not know that?”

“Oh…no,” Mike felt the full realization of what was ahead pressing on him. “Oh, shit.”

“Give it time,” Louis said. “Tell me you’ll stay away from his office the rest of the day; won’t go over to his place? We’ve all had to navigate an explosive situation or two, Mike, and…”

“I hear you,” Mike said, cutting in before Louis could make this horrible hour worse by maybe starting to tell his own tales. “I get it.”

“Fine. Just…use your head,” Louis gave him a ‘scoot and leave my office’ gesture. “Don’t make me have to come bail one of you out of a holding cell. I’ve got Sunrise Tai Chi on the Pier tomorrow. I need my rest.”

~*~

**7:45 pm**

“You wanted to see me?” Harvey asked it from Jessica’s office doorway; saw her slowly look up from the notes she was writing longhand, eyes flitting to her computer screen.

"Come in. No, wait - have a seat over there," she got up from her desk and gestured toward her sofas.

"Ah. It's one of those chats," Harvey said. "A 'just us old friends' talk?"

Harvey sat down heavily. It had been a long afternoon – trying to focus on work and failing, keeping an eye out to make sure Mike wasn’t walking his way. He’d seen him in passing but at a distance, thankfully.

"I won't dance around it," Jessica joined him, and her tone said her primary concern was business. "Louis should never play poker; I saw his face when Mike got that call. And unless you and Louis have become confidants, there's only one matter on which he knows more about you than I do.”

"How do you know either the call or his concern had anything to do with me?" 

"Because I saw your face, too. You _are_ good at poker, Harvey. You could teach the class. And I've never seen you look so deeply hurt. Then, you walking out – that was a first.”

"Jessica..."

"Just tell me: Whatever dogged you back then, is it haunting you again? Or are you all right?”

"Both," Harvey blurted.

He stopped there, but she sat back in a way that said 'I can wait.' 

"Listen, there is truly nothing going on that, as far as I can see, poses any jeopardy to the firm's reputation or my public name. Can we leave it at that?”

She didn’t move, and Harvey could see her debating his request.

“It’s been a lot of years, Harvey,” she said, and dammit- no break for him tonight. “We know each other a lot better now. Want to share it with me? What you got caught up in?”

“No,” Harvey said it in a way he hoped conveyed both that he meant it, and that there was no insult intended. “I don’t.”

“Will you tell me this? Why was… Jason, whoever he was to you, in touch with _Mike Ross_?”

Harvey heard the grim sound of agreement he couldn’t hold back, and had to look away for a second. 

“Jessica… _I_ don’t even want to know why,” he sat forward in a way that suggested he would like this to be done now, please. “But I’ll find out, because I have to. It’ll be dealt with, and it won’t affect our business. All right?”

“All right, Harvey,” she said it so softly, with such warmth in her tone that it pulled some of the air out of his lungs.

He got out of there before she could see it; how goddamned much he wished he had one person in the world he _could_ talk to about it.

~*~

**11:50 pm**

“Harvey, c’mon…” Mike knocked again – a third time. Harder. “I know you’re home.”

The door opened, finally. Slowly.

“How the hell did you get up here?” Harvey said, holding the knob.

He was dressed more casually than Mike had ever seen him; sweats with frayed hems, a black V-neck t-shirt that was much loved and tight over the shoulders from many washings. It was the clothing equivalent of comfort food. All Mike wanted was to slide his arms around him, to get hands on him and feel Harvey warm under his palms but Harvey’s expression cut the thought short. He looked so _down_ ; eyes unfocused and red. 

“Are you …smoking pot?” Mike heard the surprise in his own voice. 

“No. M’not. I hate to break it to you, but somewhere in your thirties it stops being any fun and you don’t want it anymore. Sorry if no one’s told you that piece of bad news. Guess it’s a day for that - bad news you didn’t see coming.” 

Harvey didn’t move aside. He even reached am arm to hold the opposite casing and block the door when Mike suggested he might try to slide in. That’s when Mike smelled the bourbon on his breath. 

“You need to let me in. We have to talk.”

“The hell I do. _You_ need to tell me who’s on doorman duty so I can get him fired.”

“They’re used to seeing me in and out of here a lot…” Mike managed to get a foot in as he talked, and then made it by him into the apartment. “Don’t ruin someone else’s year over this. Please?”

“Fine,” Harvey started toward his sofa, and _shit_ he was weaving visibly. “C’mon. I saved my first drink to have with you.”

“I remember that scene,” Mike watched him for a second, then followed as Harvey grabbed a rock glass and sat, pouring a fresh drink for Mike and refilling his own. “But, Harvey - Ilsa lied to Rick. I didn’t lie to you.”

“Sure you did. A lie of omission, just like hers,” Harvey shoved Mike’s drink across the coffee table with his fingertips as Mike sat in the chair next to him. “Rick asks her ‘what’s the matter, kid?’ and instead of telling him her dead husband is back from the grave she gives him that whole ‘it’s a crazy world, anything can happen’ spiel. I asked you what was wrong. You could have said ‘I found out about the giant skeleton in your closet, what’s that about?’ but all I got was ‘nothing’s wrong, Harvey.’ You lied.”

“I wanted to tell you. I was going to.”

“No, you weren’t. Know why? ‘Cause you believed it; that I would beat someone that way out of jealousy and anger. That I’m capable of leaving a human being bound, gagged, bloody and bruised for a day and a half without medical care...”

“You’re wrong. I never…”

“Drink it,” Harvey nudged the glass again, drinking more of his own.

“I don’t want it.”

“C’mon, drink it. Catch up with me,” Harvey said, the words slurring. Mike tossed it down quickly to placate him. “Then we can fight and push each other around and you can tell me ‘that’s it, I’m done.’ It’s what you came here for. Right?”

“No,” Mike watched Harvey refill the empty glass the second he set it down, filling it so full the whisky sloshed over the rim. “It’s not. I came to say that I know you didn’t do anything wrong – and neither did I. My only mistake was waiting four days to talk to you because I was afraid… you’d freak out. That _you’d_ walk on _me_.”

“Did you think that excuse up in the elevator? It’s not even half-baked, yet.”

Picking a fight. Harvey was picking a fight. Mike sat back and said nothing, and for once it was the right decision; in the silence he felt Harvey’s anger thin out, if only slightly. 

“Who told you about it?” Harvey asked, and it hurt how heavy and _different_ his voice sounded. Like someone Mike had never met. “How’d you find out what he accused me of?”

“He told me. Kind of. I stepped outside at the brunch, and...”

“Sunday? The day we spent all but four or five hours together?”

“He walked up and started…spewing shit. I cut him off, and told him to go to hell…”

“What exactly did he say?”

“Vague things, that suggested you damaged his life. Later, once I was home... I …” Mike felt the need to pause, to pull in a deep breath. “This is the part that sounds really bad, Harvey. I Googled it; your name with his, and it brought up a newspaper article…”

Mike watched him slump back, eyes going to the ceiling. Harvey clearly knew exactly which article he meant; he’d probably spent years playing ‘whack a mole,’ getting the story pulled off of site after site once the criminal complaint had been dropped. Erasing something like that entirely, though? Hard to do. 

“So… a random stranger slanders me to you, and you don’t tell me about it? We work together every day this week. We have lunch. You let me tie you up and fuck you breathless, but you can’t find the words to….”

“Harvey, c’mon….let me finish. Jason lied to Donna: I didn’t call him. I did _think_ about digging into what I'd read some more - trying to get more details. But only because I wanted to …understand. Before I told you I'd found out. Or maybe never told you and just ...let it go. But whichever I would have done in the end, I never would have called Jason. No way.”

“Screw this...." Harvey was up again, much faster than he’d sat down - was halfway to his front door before Mike could object. "You’re leaving, now….”

Mike stayed put, thinking silence was the best option again but this time it seemed to backfire; Harvey turned and started back his way, and the look on his face - it hurt seeing him so....what? Hopeless? Like he maybe believed what Mike had said, but that it didn't matter. Like that one bad chapter in his life had wrecked _them_ now, too. 

“We will work together like nothing happened,” Harvey got a handful of Mike’s shirt just as Mike stood up; he felt himself being pulled forward, and focused on keeping his footing as Harvey got behind him and pushed him toward the door. “But there’s no more ‘us’ outside of work. There never was. Get the hell out of here.”

“You see why I was afraid?” Mike stumbled but didn’t struggle – didn’t give him what he obviously wanted. “You cut and run so fast, Harvey. Jesus…..so fast.”

He got in his face, trying to engage Harvey’s eyes. If he could only get him to look at him - even as drunk and pissed off as he was, he would see it. He’d have to see it, how much he couldn't stand the thought of losing him. 

Then he lost his train of thought; it flew out of his head as Harvey pushed him to the wall by the door and stood over him. - close, barely an inch of air between them.

“I’m asking once more, Mike; walk out. I don’t want to _throw_ you out, but I will.”

“No. You won’t,” Mike relaxed against the wall. “Or you would have already.”

“Do you really think this situation gets _better_ if you don’t go?”

“It has to,” Mike reached around him, then; very slowly, determined but afraid to spook him. He set his hands on Harvey’s back, low, by his hips and pulled him in. “I can’t leave you like this. You’re upset….”

“Mike…”

“You got involved with the wrong person, and you think it’ll follow you forever. That you can never be happy…”

“Go home,” Harvey said. Mike braced to get tossed aside, but Harvey’s hands went to the wall now, too, on either side of him, Harvey’s forehead pressed against Mike’s. “Go to your girlfriend. Whatever. Go.”

“No. You’re convinced you’re alone … that you have to be alone to be safe. But you don't. I won’t leave you. I love you.”

The room went so quiet, he could hear street traffic out the window. There was no taking them back, those words. Was there? Then, to his horror, he heard Harvey start to laugh, softly. Not a happy one – dark, cynical. 

“No. You don’t,” Harvey said. “If you did? We wouldn’t be standing here.”

“Shut. Up. Look at me,” Mike wasn’t sure where he got the guts, but he reached and took Harvey’s head in his hands and shook it. Shook him, and made Harvey meet his eyes. “I said I love you, and I fucking meant it.”

Harvey looked shocked. A little anger in there - that was the dom in him reacting at being handled this way, at Mike talking to him like that. There was confusion, too; partly the alcohol, but also him maybe really _seeing_ Mike for the first time since he’d walked in tonight, looking not just _at_ him but into his eyes, past the events of the last few days and….

Then Harvey was dropping in to kiss him; soft and deep, possessive; the way Mike had been kissed on that hillside five days ago but so much better because this time there as nothing tentative or distant in it, just Harvey holding and touching him like Mike was something precious. Something that was _his_. Mike relaxed into it; opened his arms, his mouth, his tongue flicking back, a long murmur of exhaustion and relief escaping him. 

“Oh….” Mike said when he could. “...wow. You love me, too. You do...”

“No.”

“Harvey… please… this isn’t the time to…”

“I don’t. And even if I did...” Harvey said, but the _way_ he said it - so torn. Like he was talking to himself and not Mike.

“… this isn’t the time to lie or be tough. C’mon. Say it. I want to.... _need_ to hear you say it…”

Harvey was blinking; was breathing deep, looking at the floor, the wall, anywhere but at him. He was half a second from saying it back - Mike _knew_ he was when…..

Someone knocked on Harvey’s door. 

“Son of a _bitch_ ,” Harvey folded; pulled him in and held him tighter, whispering against the top of Mike's head, mouth brushing against Mike's hair. “That’s it; someone is getting fired. You don’t want it to be the doorman? Then I’ll fire you.”

“It’s not the same guy ...” Mike said as Harvey started kissing him again; more loosely and sporadically this time, starting at his temple, finding his ear, grazing at his cheek and neck like they had all night. “Tony let me in, but then the shift changed. It’s the overnight person. Marco. Gonna get them both fired?”

He felt Harvey make a ‘screw you and your concern for others’ sound between presses of his mouth. And he felt his own body responding, now that the fear and anger were gone- the urge for the two of them to be lying down together running through him as fast as it always did.

“Harvey?!” A woman’s voice piped up from the other side of the door. “I hear you, papa bear...open the door.”

She sounded both sweetly hopeful and ...very drunk. 

“Will you do me a favor?” Harvey asked, stepping back, hands cupping Mike's face. “Wait in my room while I deal with this?”

“Uh… _papa_ …bear?”

“Don’t ask.”

“Former subbie?” Mike walked away, fingers tracing over Harvey’s shoulder and arm, clasping his hand briefly as he did.

“Yes. A friend,” Harvey said. “More like an ex. Can't seem to get away from them this week.”

He sounded a thousand miles beyond done with this day.

At least they were on the same page about something, Mike thought.


	12. Friday

**12:05 a.m.**

"No, no, Harvey... not the ... you _don't_ want me in there. You… _don't_ …”   

“Yes,” Mike heard him telling her, Harvey's voice patient but firm. “I really do. ”

“No…” The woman's voice was louder, now, getting closer.  “Let's.... c'mon, _your_ room. You know you'll love it."  

She had a slurred, tipsy warble going that was clearly an attempt at sultry but came off like she was about five uneven steps from face planting.   

Mike kept pacing Harvey’s room; he could tell that Harvey was losing the battle. First, there had been his attempt to talk her into leaving -  then his backup strategy to steer her into his guest room. She clearly had a high level of familiarity with the place and felt pretty at home even as wasted as she sounded.

From some of the other things he’d heard her say and the tight growl in Harvey's _'stop.. please... c'mon'_ and his _'no, this way… not that…’_ Mike suspected he had his hands very full; it sounded like he was too busy keeping her from stripping right there in his living room to effectively aim her where he wanted her.  

"I heard the television..." she said, her voice just outside the bedroom door now, her hand on the knob from the way it was shifting. "I know you're alone. Why don't you want to...."   

Mike fought the sudden urge to run and hide in Harvey's bathroom. He felt like hanging here in the bedroom was _one_ thing but… retreating a second time was ...

Unnecessary. It should be unnecessary for him to hide.

That's when it hit him in full; on this night when he felt like he was as close to losing Harvey as he'd ever been, he knew he wanted him forever. As his dom, and as ... _his._ In public with no hiding and all to himself.    

That’s when the door opened and a tall, brunette woman stumble-flew in.  

"Oh ...hell," She stopped flat, looking very confused.  

Mike stopped walking. Didn’t say anything –wasn’t sure what to say. 

"You're not the television," she swayed then retreated, hand finding the doorknob and leaning on it. 

"I'm definitely not."  

"You're a man."  

"Yes," he said. 

"Harvey, I thought you gave up boys for lent," she shouted back toward the rest of the apartment, keeping tight hold on the door as Harvey ducked in behind her and dropped a large pot on the bedroom floor. "At least I thought you would have, after..."   

"She’s not a big drinker," Harvey said to Mike by way of explanation, gesturing at the pot and trying to leave the room again quickly. “Keep that close.”

"Wait!" Mike yelped; this was so not good, babysitting someone you’d never met who might take a turn for the vomitous. "Where are you going?"  

"To get water and antacids," Harvey said. "And to drunk-proof the spare room."  

"Got it," Mike said.    

The woman started to waver when Harvey left, the motion of him walking away visibly confusing her in that ‘are you moving or am I moving right now?’ kind of way. 

"Umm, Harvey?” Mike stepped in reflexively, a hand going to her shoulder. “Hurry up, all right?"   

"Not … gonna barf..." she caught herself and walked around Mike to sit on the foot of the bed. "No time soon, at least. Oh, God, this day keeps getting more awful by the second."   

"It does, doesn’t it?" Mike joined her – bringing the pot and setting it between them. “I thought it was just me…”

“Don’t ever get _self-pity wasted_ at a bachelorette party,” She advised him.  

“I can safely say… that’s unlikely. But thanks.” 

“Especially the week after your fiancé walks on you. Do _not_ get dumped and then go ahead with your friend’s wedding as planned. Don’t tell yourself ‘I’m tough, I can stick this crap out’ ‘cause…you probably can’t. At least I couldn’t.”   

“I… I’m sorry. That must be…” 

“Awful. Yes. And I’m not the clingy type, you know? I’m my own person. But…” she stopped in mid-thought to stare at him, eyes narrowing. “You… you’re not in the business, are you? A lawyer? Are you from his firm?” 

Mike felt the surprise crossing his own face; how his mouth had dropped ever so slightly open at the question. He scanned her face again and something clicked - vague references from Donna about a semi-significant other in Harvey’s past. He searched for a name in the back of his brain but none came. 

“Dana Scott,” She extended a slightly wavering hand. 

Mike felt his face flushing with realization; this wasn’t some random submissive of Harvey’s.

“Mike,” he shook it and met her eyes, saw color rising in her cheeks, too, like she was registering the same thing about him. “Mike Ross.” 

Happily, that’s when Harvey returned with a huge glass of water in one hand and a tiny plastic cup with something green and presumably stomach-soothing in it. He handed her the later and she downed it like they’d done this before; him caring for her after a bad night out.  

“Sip,” Harvey handed her the water and took the plastic cup back. “Don’t gulp.”

“I don’t suppose we could all play, the three of us?” She said, making the exchange with a wink. “I’m not _so_ very wasted…”

 “Scottie,” Harvey said.  

It was just the one word, but it so full of gentle chiding at her; like he was urging her to drop the façade. And, Mike thought, it was so full of something else beyond that. What?

It hit him as Scottie set the water down on the floor and brushed a hand under her eye, starting to cry; Harvey’s voice was saying, ‘darling, _you_ dumped _me_ – remember?’

Mike was up fast, and out of the room. He heard the door click shut. Heard her crying harder behind it.  

~*~

“I’m sorry about the… um… unexpected extra dose of high emotion,” Harvey said.

He sounded much more sober, himself, thanks to having to tend to Scottie. He also sounded exhausted, even more than he had when Mike walked in.

“We all end up there sometime,” Mike said.  

They were standing at the elevator, again, where they’d said goodnight barely twenty-six hours earlier. But this time there wouldn’t be any touching; no forehead pressed against his, no arms running around him, pulling him in. Mike could feel that wasn’t in the cards. 

“Harvey….”

“No,” Harvey cut him off. “I can't. If there’s any chance of things going well for us, I need room to think. Okay? A lot of it.”

Mike gave him that; hit the elevator and was on the sidewalk before his brain had time to object; to remind him he’d already given Harvey time and space all day and that all Harvey had done with it was brood, isolate himself, and pound bourbon.

It would have been easy to do something like that, too. Walking in search of a ride, he debated it; whether to give the cabbie his own address or hit a bar or… 

“Hi…” he fought for the right words when Rachel picked up his call, sounding foggy with sleep. “We need… _I_ need to talk. Sorry, I know it’s late but… _shit_ ….I really need to talk with you…”

~*~  

 **8:45 a.m.**  

“Special delivery,” A voice said from Harvey’s office door. “Your hangover cure is here.” 

“Excuse me?” He focused on boring a hole through Rachel’s forehead with his eyes as she walked in and set two bags on his desk, sliding a plate from the coffee room under them and setting a plastic spoon nearby. “I don’t need…whatever that is.”

The laser stare of death wasn’t working; she even had the nerve to pull a chair up.

Watching her do so made the vein in his head which had been threatening to explode since he crawled out of bed throb harder.  

“It’s not nice to be an ungracious winner, Harvey,” she sat back, arms folding. “Eat. What do you have to lose but a headache, dry mouth and jangled nerves?" 

He thought about informing here there was no way he’d won _anything_ or he’d probably know about it…but the scent of miso soup was strong, and damn it did smell great; rich and warm and soothing.  

 “Toast with honey?” He asked, opening the smaller of the bags and then pushing it aside.

The toast could wait ‘til after the soup. 

“Yes. Some sugar to help cut the pain. Carbs, of course. The soup is for hydration and the salt in it will help with the jitters,” She relaxed into the chair at the sight of his crankiness melting, if only slightly. “It’s a myth that a big, greasy cheeseburger is the best morning-after painkiller. I’m guessing you don’t go for those very often anyway.” 

“Thank you,” Harvey said after taking a long drink of the soup straight from the container. “It’s good.” 

There was a pause so long he thought maybe she was waiting for him to say something more. Then Rachel piped up again. 

“When Mike told me about you two, I only had one request. Know what it was?”

“Rachel….”

“I didn’t want details of any kind. That was it; my only demand.” 

 “If he showed up on your door last night… I’m sorry. I vaguely recall saying something to him like ‘go to your girlfriend,’ but I didn’t mean to put you in the middle of….”

“I’m sure you didn’t. I also know it’s only been a week, and my line in the sand didn’t hold even that long. So… instead of getting a good night’s sleep, I spent the very early morning counseling a man who’s in love with someone else.”

“This is….” Harvey looked for the right words and couldn’t find them. “Wrong. I can’t have this conversation with you. You should stop.” 

“C’mon, Harvey; you won and I brought you breakfast. At least let me finish.”

“He doesn’t love me." 

“Yeah, he does. For the sake of Mike’s dignity I won’t describe how much he’s hurting or what he said - but I will say this: If someone ever cares about me the way he cares about you? I’m locking that in. I came to tell you that you should do the same.” 

“What about you?”  

Harvey heard it come out of his mouth, and it hit him how deeply Mike had gotten to him that he even gave a damn.

“I told him I’m happy to keep dating for a while if you two don’t get your heads together. But I’m never playing second fiddle ever…again. Not for anyone. And in this scenario I’ll always be second fiddle to you, whether you take him back or not. So…" 

She was on her feet in as succinct a manner as she’d walked in. That’s when Harvey realized she meant it; her heart wasn’t in this game. Not any more, if it ever was.

“Wait,” he said.

She stopped and turned, and gave him a nod that said ‘go ahead.’

“I didn’t plan this. You should know that. I didn’t…see this coming. ” 

“I know,” she said, with a shrug that suggested ‘that’s the way love goes’ and a tiny grin. “Which is why I didn’t spit in your soup.” 

Harvey gave her a head tilt full of ‘touché,’ folding the toast and taking a bite.

It was hard to tell if the relief he felt running through him was the honey, the miso, or hope.  

~*~  

**11:10 a.m.**

“I shouldn’t have come here….” Mike said, standing a yard from where Dana Scott sat on a bench in Union Square Park.  

 He’d been surprised when she called. Not so surprised, though, when she asked him to meet her here – far enough away from work that they wouldn’t run into anyone. 

“Well, you did…” She hadn’t taken her sunglasses off; pulled them slowly away, now, wincing. “So sit down, please? I’m in too much pain for small talk or protests.”

“ _I’m_ in a lot of trouble with Harvey,” Mike said as he sat. “And it’s over exactly nothing I’ve actually done. I feel like his exes are chasing me, or something.”   

“We’re not,” Scottie patted the bench. “At least I’m not. Just your rotten luck, that’s all, and the fact that he’s… memorable. Hard to shake, like a bad habit.”

“How was he this morning?” Mike asked. 

“I don’t know. I slid out the door when I woke up. You haven’t seen him either?”

Mike thought she looked surprised; like she wondered what it said about how close he was or wasn’t with Harvey that he had to ask her.

“It’s been…a bad week,” Mike decided to keep the level of detail low. “He wanted some breathing room, so I’m giving him what he asked for.”

“Wise,” her gaze turned another kind of appraising, like she was imagining what Harvey saw in him, maybe even imagining them together and Mike felt himself blushing slightly. “He shuts down pretty fast without that precious breathing room of his, doesn’t he?”

Mike wanted to say ‘amen to that,’ but opted not to.

“Why did you want to see me?” 

“Do you have a boyfriend, Mike? Or a girlfriend? Aside from what you and Harvey are…”

“That’s not what you want to ask me.” Mike jumped right back in. “I thought you didn’t have time for dancing around things?”

“Fine. What is he to you? Is he only your dom or…something more important?” 

“Why aren’t you asking him?” 

Mike wasn’t in the mood for this, especially after the last few days. Who knew how it might come back to bite him?

“Do I need to explain to you,” she went on, not losing her patience even a bit from the even tone of her voice. “…that Harvey isn’t exactly a reliable witness when it comes to his own emotions?” 

That was fair enough. Maybe…if he gave a little….

“He’s not just my dom. It started that way but… it’s gotten a lot more complicated.”

“Does he love you?" 

“Excuse me?” Mike started to get up, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Mike, do you love him?”

“I don’t _know_ you,” he did get up then. “And you sure as hell don’t know _me_ , so even if I had it all figured out in a nice, ten word answer…what would it really mean?”

“You’d _better_ figure it out,” she said, and now her voice did change - for the harder. “I want him back. I don’t want to hurt him or …you. But if there’s any chance his future is open, I’m going to try. And this time I won’t be tipsy and crying. I’ll be on my game.”

It stuck with him all the way to the office, how sure of herself she sounded. Like Harvey letting her stay and him tending to her last night said he still felt something for her. It also made it a thousand times harder to stick to his resolve; to steer clear of Harvey for a few more hours until the weekend, blessedly, arrived and he could run and find some breathing room of his own. 

Then Mike got to the office and the first damn person he walked into off the elevator... 

“Hey,” Harvey said, each of them stepping sideways to avoid each other.

“Hi,” Mike said. “How are….how are you?" 

The only answer he got was Harvey ignoring him and walking into the elevator – punching the lobby key and the ‘close door’ button repeatedly.

Mike felt his heart drop, and the heavy thud of his blood pressure soaring. He walked to the men’s room, and hoped no one outside it could hear him shouting his frustration at the tiled walls.

He thought about punching the paper towel dispenser, then realized a broken hand would be the worst capper ever for the week. 

Then he breathed deep…. and went back to work.

~*~    

**7:45 pm**

Harvey leaned back in the booth, pushing the empty appetizer plate across the table. He assessed the drink in his hand and debated: have another, or  no?  Dinner here, or home? 

He couldn’t even make up his mind about any of that that. Let alone…. 

This was Mike’s fault, the bleakest corner of his brain told the rest of him. Mike Ross’s fault for getting in his head like he’d sworn no one would.

It didn’t matter what Mike had or hadn’t done; all that mattered was how deeply Mike’s lack of trust had stung. The not telling Harvey what he’d read online about him. The fact that Mike could have wondered, even for even a minute…

He pushed the thoughts away before they could spin out on him again. For the last day they’d veered between feeling like a vague, dark ache to something more like a knife in the back - but they hadn't let him alone for a second. All that work becoming the king of compartmentalization and… he was reduced to this.

At least it was quiet here; the music low and the hum of conversation lower. It was a restaurant he'd liked he was new at the firm, before his income met his tastes. The food was amazing, they sold good scotch, but they still had old-school booths; green Formica tabletops with mid-20th-century squiggles shaped like boomerangs. 

It wasn’t a place anyone would come looking for him, now.  Well, except one person…

“You must have something better to do on a Friday,” Harvey said as Donna walked up. 

She was still in her work clothes, too; had probably been checking his haunts since she left the office, which meant she’d invested over an hour in finding him.

“This place… is going _back_ a ways, Harvey,” she stood by his booth, not making any assumption she’d be asked to sit. “Whatever Mike did to you, it pushed you back in actual _time_.”

“Have dinner with me,” Harvey found himself saying on impulse. “Please?” 

He watched Donna look around; like she was weighing it, sniffing the aromas of red sauce and grilled steaks, assessing the crowd.

“I could eat,” She said.

It was a relief, watching her slide into the booth and arrange her bag, digging out her phone and setting it aside on the table. 

“Thank you,” Harvey said.

“For what?” 

“For looking for me." 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Donna asked as the waiter swung by with a menu for her, “Or do you want to not talk about it? ‘Cause I can do mindless chit-chat, if…” 

“Scottie’s in town,” Harvey banged a hard right on the conversation, watching one of Donna’s eyebrows rise as she flipped open the menu. “Her fiancé’s out of the picture. She’s …crushed. It’s put me in a good light with her again. She showed up last night and has been texting me all…” 

“No,” Donna didn’t look up from the list of entrees.

“I didn’t ask for an opinion…”

“Yes, you did,” Donna said, “or you wouldn’t have mentioned it at all.”

“So that’s it?” Harvey asked. “Just ‘no,’ and so much for _her,_ for _years_ of us?”

He watched Donna choose not to answer that. 

“What did Mike do to you?” She asked, eventually. “I really need some clue, here, because it’s the second time this week I’ve been entirely _off_ about you two. I feel like my radar is dented - like those dolphins that lose their sonar and start swimming in circles, getting lost in some river in Connecticut...”

“Can we go with not talking about it?” Harvey gave it a shot, but her expression told him that offer may have expired – or maybe never had been good at all, really.

“There aren’t any cases you’re butting heads on, and Mike hasn’t screwed anything up royally in …forever,” Donna said. “And it’s not like he’s Scottie – there’s no chance this is … _personal_ , right, so….”

Harvey thought he did pretty well keeping his poker face on, but apparently he’d failed; another sign of the huge chink in his armor with the initials M.R. on it.

“Oh, my…” Donna looked like she couldn’t decide whether to get up and start pacing or slide under the booth and onto the floor. “….oh, my _God_.”

“Stop… don’t… it’s not…that big a deal.”

“It is. It’s…huge!”

“Donna….” It wasn’t as if she were yelling, and there weren’t any heads swiveling their way - but it sure felt like there were. “Please, c'mon..."

“You? And Mike? As in….” 

“Yes,” Harvey said, and now he couldn’t fight off a tiny look of amusement at the waves of shock rolling over her face, how she was shifting in her seat like it was physically, head-to-toe confusing to her. “…as in ….yes. Mike and me.”

“I can’t … _believe_ I didn’t know,” she said, waving the waiter over. “All this time, I’m making jokes about ‘work husbands’ and…. I … need a drink.”

“We’re hardly husbands,” Harvey countered. “We’re barely past fucking for fun…”

That made her look like she might need more than a drink. Smelling salts, maybe.

It would be annoying, Harvey thought, her deeply stunned reaction, except it really was fun seeing her this flustered for the first time in years. And really – when would he ever get a chance to drop something so unexpected on her ever again?

~*~ 

“Thank you,” Harvey told her, standing by the open limo door, one hand on the doorjamb as Donna slid into the back seat. “For the company, and for your ear.”

He was opting to give her the wheels home and to make his way to his apartment on foot – the better to think some more.

“You’re welcome. And whatever you decide… you can call me. You know? If you need to?”

He answered by leaning in and pressing a kiss to her forehead, accepting one on the cheek in return before he shut the door and the car pulled away from the curb. 

 _I don’t know if I can forgive it… him not trusting me. Not telling me…_  

He’d poured that out, among many other things, once the initial shock was over and they’d worked through Donna’s raft of questions: When had it started, how serious was it, how the hell had they hidden it so well, JFC, seriously, _how_ had they _hidden_ it?

 _Can you live without her and be happy?_   Donna had asked, not really expecting an answer. _And how about him? Can you live without Mike, and be happy?_

He never responded to either question, but his reactions must have said it all; suddenly Donna was smiling fondly, her eyes going warm and swimmy on his behalf and he felt…so exposed. So…afraid. 

_What if I forgive him and trust him and someday he…. Jesus, Donna, he could be the death of me. He really could._

She’d laughed outright at that, shaking her head when he glared at her, like ‘what’s so frigging funny?’

 _You have to give in and be vulnerable someday…_ she had said. _And you two, you fit. I don’t know why or how but you do. What if this is it, Harvey? The last time you ever have to take a chance? What if Mike is everything you need?”_

Harvey mulled her words over and over as he walked.  Then, the next time the light was against him and he had to stop at a corner he pulled out his phone.

“Hi,” he said when Scottie answered, barreling right into it before she could say a single word. “Yes, I’ve been avoiding you. No… nope. Uh-uh, not my place. Where are you staying? I’ll come to you…” 

 


	13. If I give my heart (a negotiation)

Mike could remember when a week like this would have ended with him sleeping all morning, and then rolling himself a joint before he even got out of bed. 

Today, he’d been up at eight a.m., and riding his bike toward the river. Now it was mid-afternoon, and he was thinking about a movie, or a museum maybe - anything healthy and harmless that could help push back the memory of Harvey standing by his elevator looking so deeply sad, or of Scottie’s slick, sideways declaration of war.

Not to mention the nightmare scenarios his brain had been churning through since. The most crazy-making? Her naked, sitting north of Harvey’s hips in Harvey’s bed, giving him a slow, deep back rub to push away his sorrows… and any lingering thoughts of Mike.

It would take more than a movie or museum to push _that_ image away.

“Yeah?” He went his apartment door as the rasp of his outside buzzer sounded, answering it absently, scrolling through his phone contacts for someone to call, to talk to.

Odds were the buzzer was a locked out neighbor, or a delivery guy hitting the wrong button.

“Your deadbolt’s more effective than two doormen. My building should install one.”

Mike felt his heart rise and start to pound, then realized it was only his body’s knee-jerk reaction to that voice. His body, he thought, was way too hopeful too fast.

“You didn’t, did you?” Mike pressed it again. “Get the door guys fired?”

“No,” He heard Harvey say, mock dejectedly. "I didn’t. I thought about it, but I have this subbie who polluted me with his kindheartedness.”

“Good. Otherwise you weren’t getting in,” Mike hit the button to release the lock.

“Great,” He heard Harvey pulling open the door. “Now you have all the blind faith in the world in me. I could be lying, you know?”

It was one of Mike’s most stressful moments in years: Opening the apartment door, looking to gauge his expression and what it might say about why he was here. Was this visit all about _we are done, we never were; better to bury it and forget it…._ or was Harvey here for him? For _them_?

“C’mon…” Mike’s heart dropped at the blank stare greeting him. “Not fair; give a guy a clue, maybe?”

“I need you to be patient,” Harvey said it fast, like he’d been preparing on the way over.

“Fine. I’m listening. Patiently.”

“Ask me in?” Harvey said; a question not an order, nodding past him toward the living room. “It’s customary. And, I might note, you didn’t wait for an invite Thursday. You _pushed_ your way into _my_ home…”

He was dressed very weekend casual, Mike saw as he waved him in; black pants, thin deep grey cashmere V-neck accentuating his shoulders and arms but nothing elaborate. Mike wasn’t sure how to read that, if it said anything about his plans.

“Do you remember when we started?” Harvey asked when the door shut. Mike nodded, joining him, neither of them wanting to be first to sit, apparently. “I told you one show of emotion and we were done.”

“That was almost a year ago. A lot has…” 

“It was seven months ago,” Harvey cut him off. “And I meant it.” 

“I know,” Mike said as Harvey stepped closer, hands going to his pockets, shoulders pulling inward like Harvey was shielding himself slightly. Steeling himself.

It wasn’t lost on Mike what he was doing; accentuating his height advantage, standing almost over him. A gentle form of domination, maybe, but yeah - he was being dommed none the less. For the last time? He wanted to reach in, to close the space between them, but…

“I wasn’t looking for anything serious,” Harvey said. “Not that I don’t care about you; I think I always have, or I’d have kicked you out of my office day one. But this was only supposed to be…”

“… fucking. Yeah. I get that, too. I would claim it was the same for me, but…”

“It wasn’t. It was never only that for you,” Harvey said – inches away now, eyes flitting from Mike’s eyes to Mike’s mouth and back and goddamn it that was really not fair at all.

“You… knew?”

“You’re easy to read,” Harvey said it almost apologetically, like he knew how it felt to be vulnerable to someone who isn’t. “At least, to me you are. I thought I could keep it in check; I could manage us and not hurt you. Now… I know I’m screwed.”

“Excuse me?” Mike tried to rein in the part of him screaming that he was clearly the one who'd gotten screwed lately, but it came out bitter.

“Thursday, when I realized you’d found out about Jason, and the charges he brought when I broke things off?" Harvey stepped away, fidgeting like it was hard, talking about it. "I thought you went out of your _way_ to find him and ... it hurt so goddamn much.”

“But I _didn’t_.”

“I know. But at that moment? I felt… sick. After which, I got sloppy drunk, as _you_ know. And even when you told me everything – when I knew the whole misunderstanding was him screwing with our heads…it didn’t help.” 

“Let me recap,” Mike felt the need to step in before his head exploded with frustration. “You’re saying it didn’t make you feel any better that I did absolutely nothing wrong?”

“It didn’t. Because I realized... if I give my heart to you and you crush it? I don't have that much heart left to _spend_ ,” Harvey's tone changed; got calmer, more introspective. "I’m not kidding: I’m really afraid of what I could turn into if that happens - what you could do to me.... if I let you.”

It was what Mike had been dreading; this had to be goodbye. He fought to keep his face a blank - to not show the wave of ‘no, please, no’ that was running through him, making his stomach tighten and his heart hurt for them both. There was so much they could have together – so much for them to lose if….

“That’s it? You’re walking?”

“I thought I would. Thought I _had_ to. But last night someone played ‘what if’ with me: Asked if I could really be happy without you, and I realized … I can’t.”

“You just said….”

“I know what I said. What I said is I’m screwed. I slept on it, and woke up realizing how this has to go. If you’ll have me, as shut down as I am? If you’ll try, and you’ll swear to me that you….”

“Holy crap, Harvey; way to bury the lead,” Mike felt the words rushing out of him, and so much for containing himself - his voice was shaking, a hand going to his forehead as he blinked back his relief.

Everything had just changed in his life. _Everything_ had changed for the better, and for a second he couldn’t even see straight – let alone absorb it.

“Not so fast,” Harvey said, but he reached to show support; hands smoothing over Mike’s shoulders, holding onto his arms. “There’s a condition.”

“We’re negotiating?”

“I have to be sure from the start that ...”

“What?” Mike asked, working hard on focusing when Harvey paused.

“I need to know ... you love me more than her."

Later, Mike would think about how confused he must have looked at the question; how his reaction made Harvey smile with something like relieved amusement.

"Who? You mean _Rachel_?”

“You thought you loved her, didn’t you? You broke her heart…or at least dented it.”

"Okay, that’s not entirely unfair,” Mike acknowledged. “And the truth isn’t pretty, but here it is: I think I only got involved with her to keep my mind off the fact I couldn’t have you. If it makes you feel any better, she ended it. And I wouldn’t say she was heartbroken at all."

“It does help,” Harvey said, the first of them to sit on Mike's couch, relaxing into it like maybe he’d just been through something, too. “It’s the impression I got as well.”

“You talked with her?”

“She came to my office with hangover food,” Harvey said.

“No way.”

“Yeah,” there was a glint in his eye, hands pressing into the sofa as he kicked back more and toed off his own shoes, pushing them away. “Pretty classy move on her part, right? By the way, you didn’t come to my office with hangover food, did you?”

“That’s ridiculous. You weren’t even talking to me; I’d have left either wearing it or frozen solid by your huge, cold shoulder and you know it. What did she say?”

“She said if someone ever loves her the way you love me… she’s locking that in.”

“So?”

“So I’m here,” Harvey reached a hand to him, reeling Mike in when Mike took it, inviting him down with him. “…to lock that in. If .....”

"What?” Mike slid, facing him, knees finding the back of the couch as they shifted against each other and he settled onto Harvey’s lap. “Anything, say it."

"Swear you'll never leave me at a train station in the rain, feeling like I’ve been kicked in the gut."

"I’ll never hurt you,” Mike saw those eyes flitting to his lips the way they had a minute ago, and he reached in to kiss Harvey lightly between words. “Not on purpose; I swear I won’t. I’ll be your partner… and your friend… and... Oh, please, God, your sub, still, right?"

"I was hoping you'd say that,” Harvey got arms around him, low; Mike felt hands on his ass cheeks, squeezing and then wandering up his back, sliding under his shirt in search of skin to touch. “I came prepared to give it up if you wanted to go all …you know… boring and … vanilla. Relationshippy."

"Hell, no,” Mike said it against Harvey’s lips, his own eyes closing, brain zeroing in on the places they were touching, the way both of their bodies were warming, waiting for what Harvey would do next.

“Good,” he felt Harvey give a quick push with his hips, a hand finding the back of Mike’s head, Harvey deepening their kiss for a teasingly short two seconds. “You know, a lot of established couples…they get more adventurous over time. Or so I’ve heard."

 _Amen to that…_ Mike thought as Harvey twisted and flipped them lengthwise on the sofa, getting up over him. _All the things….let’s do them all….every damn one._

~*~

“We’re…staying? At my place?” 

It had been a surprise; Harvey ducking into the hall once they were semi-presentable, picking up a day bag he’d obviously dropped there on the way in.

"My apartment is worse than Grand Central lately,” He’d said, carrying it to Mike’s room.

It made sense: No one would bother them here all weekend. But...

 _You sleeping in my bed? Drinking coffee from my crappy drip pot and making toast on the grill under the oven?_ Mike asked it with his eyes, got a shrug and a look that said 'I haven't always lived like I live now...'

Then Harvey had asked if there was any seriously good Asian food in his neighborhood?

~*~

“Do I need to watch my back?” Mike poked with his chopsticks for the last of the goodies in the Szechuan Hot Pot soup.

“Watch for what?” Harvey was well relaxed into his side of the booth, sipping at his bottle of beer, done with his sashimi.

“A tall brunette on a vendetta armed with her drunken wiles and heart-rending tears.”

“No. We’re good,” Harvey waved off the waiter bringing them dessert menus, making a ‘just the check, please’ motion with one hand. “I talked with her last night.”

“And now she’s making a voodoo doll shaped like me.”

“That… is possible,” Harvey acknowledged. “Don’t worry; they don’t work.”

“You know this, how?”

Harvey gave him a grin. 

“I’d have been walking funny long before I met you if they did.”

“Good point,” Mike said.

~*~

They got back to Mike’s apartment the same way they’d hit the restaurant: walking there through the quiet, now dark streets; alone enough on the sidewalk to lean into each other at will, to touch and clasp hands without having to dodge people.

“I was right. She lied,” Mike felt Harvey say it from behind him forty minutes later, the two of them tangled just right in their sweatpants. “A lie of omission.”

They’d found their ideal half-cuddle, half-spoon on Mike’s bed and started the movie; Sam playing it again, Rick pouring champagne as the Germans marched in, asking Ilsa where she was ten years ago. Ilsa gave her spiel about ‘wherever they put you and wherever I’ll be…’ and it being a crazy world.

Mike sighed deeply. 

“You’re looking at this all wrong. She said what she said because… she couldn’t stand seeing the pain in his eyes if she told him what she’d found out.”

“I guess that’s one way to look at it. It's the wrong way, but it’s a way.”

“I will never lie to you,” Mike said, his tone reminding Harvey it wasn’t the first time he’d offered him vows today. “I’ll never be reckless with us. Ever. I love you.”

He didn’t get a verbal response, but he didn’t expect one. Still, the way Harvey pulled him in that extra bit tighter, kissing and nipping at his shoulder said he accepted his promises. And that he believed them.

~*~

“Please…now…I _have_ to ….Harvey, let me come, _please_?”

Mike pressed his lower back into the bed and pushed with his hips; tried to lift up on his elbows, squeezing around the cock filling him, fucking him. Harvey only groaned and pinned him down with a hand to his shoulder; changed the pace and fucked him slower until he was pushing long, needy begging sounds out of him.

“Soon…not yet. Need this some more… doing so good, hang on…”

Mike did, barely, the urge to let go and lose his shit so strong it was almost painful not to. 

Almost.

But so good, too; being at his mercy, thigh cuffs locked to wrist cuffs so Mike’s arms couldn’t go anywhere. So simple, just four basic velvet bands and two locks – but something about it, being restrained this way, getting manhandled and pushed around however Harvey wanted him ….

It felt so filthy. He felt so vulnerable, like Harvey’s fuck toy. 

Maybe it was because it was happening in his own bed for the first time, but it felt so damn…real. The raw and not pretty kind of screwing; his knees bent, legs spread wide, the smell of sweat and scented lube and ….

“Ooooh, yes, fuck….yessss…..”

Harvey’s hips speeding up, a hand on Mike’s cock, now, squeezing and tugging him just right and…

“Come for me. C’mon..now…yeah….”

Mike remembered it later; the waves of _so good, so good_ – floating on them, losing himself, not even in the room for a second. Actual goddamned subspace. 

When he surfaced on the other side of it he was on his stomach – one cuff released, one still tied and Harvey over him, tending to him. Harvey’s hands kneading his arms, his hips, digging into Mike’s lower back to soothe muscles that had been put in all kinds of stressful positions … and it felt like heaven.

“What’s so funny?” Harvey got low to ask it by his ear, and Mike realized he’d been laughing softly, kind of goofy with endorphins.

“Can I tell you later?” 

Mike didn’t want to get into a conversation about it; his unhappy daydream earlier, of someone else giving Harvey what Harvey was giving him now. He wasn’t sure he even _could_ explain it at the moment.

“Sure,” Harvey popped the other lock free and helped Mike rearrange himself so that his other arm and leg were fully relaxed now, too. “Later’s good. Get some sleep if you want….”

Harvey didn’t have to tell him twice, and..... _Jesus_ , he was pretty sure- Sundays were about to become his favorite day of the week. 

~*~

“So?” 

Harvey heard Donna as he walked right by her and into his office on Monday.

“So, what?”

“Don’t you dare,” she said, sure enough of herself and her right to a more complete answer that she stayed put; didn’t even stand up to follow him.

“So… _thank_ you,” Harvey continued on, the emphasis on ‘thank’ making it clear he had nothing more to say about it.

“You’re welcome,” Donna said, and that was that; all they ever needed to say on the topic for some time to come.

~*~

“Good morning,” Jessica said to Harvey from her desk, sitting back to assess the look on his face. “What’s up?”

“We need to talk,” Harvey said. 

“Do we? Oh, please tell me my hunch is right, and my wildest dream has come true: You’re done with him, professionally and personally. You’ve kicked his ass out of your bed and out of the firm, and..."

“Of course not,” Harvey kept his voice bland – hiding a considerable amount of surprise that their well-kept secret clearly wasn’t so secret any more.

It had only ever been a matter of time.

“Right,” Jessica said. “Of course not. Why should my luck change, ever?”

“I assume there will be paperwork for us both to sign?” Harvey asked. “Indemnifying the corporation against any… issues that may arise.”

“Oh, Harvey,” she said. “You have no idea. Your pen hand will be begging, will be absolutely _weeping_ for mercy before this day is over.”

“Fine,” Harvey said. “It’s the one part of me not worn out from…”

“Waaay too much,” Jessica cut him off. “Way too much information.”

~*~

Louis never said a thing to either of them. 

It just got taken as written with him that they were together - and since it was in the open and he couldn’t make any pissy kind of hay with it, that was that. 

Which was a huge relief, really, for all three of them.

~*~

**Six Months Later**

“I don’t know if it’s the smartest idea, you bringing me up here so often,” Mike looked up to make sure Harvey wasn’t getting too far ahead of him in the blue-grey, pre-dawn. “I could get hooked; getting away from it all, having you to myself.”

“It’s cheaper than a lot of places you could fall for,” Harvey pointed out, visibly intent on moving forward. “Thank God you're not overly fond of Vegas.”

“It’s … so beautiful here,” Mike said as they walked past a stand of trees that were going bare; only a few red and gold and purple leaves left on them as fall deepened, the branches stark grey in the morning twilight. “It’ll be cold tonight. It could even snow.”

That would be a perfect excuse to carry in some of the wood waiting for them behind Harvey’s condo, and make use of the fireplace.

All Mike got out of him was a long 'hmmmm' of agreement; Harvey's mind had visibly been somewhere else since they'd rolled out of bed on his orders at zero dark hundred.

“I don’t want to sound ungrateful for you planning a surprise…” Mike tried another tack to try to get him to slow down and talk to him, maybe. "...but can you tell me why we couldn’t have started out on this hike about two hours later?”

“We could have,” Harvey acknowledged. “But it wouldn’t have been in keeping with my primary purpose in dragging you here. Timing always matters, doesn’t it?”

This wasn't an hour that Harvey was all that fond of on the weekend, either - which made it more confusing. Add the headlamps they were wearing to cast some light on the ground, the occasional sound of rocks skittering down behind them as they worked their way steeply up, up, upward and the whole thing had Mike a little tense.

“This is…uh… more intimidating than the walk we took in the spring.”

“That was a hill,” Harvey explained. “This is a mountain.”

They kept going in silence, watching the darkness give way to the brighter blue of dawn. 

"Perfect…” Mike heard Harvey say in the thin, quiet air, Harvey reaching back a hand to ask for his and they must be ...here. Wherever here was.

"Perfect, how?” Mike asked, then he saw the view and it struck him silent. Almost. “Ohhhh….”

The trail had finally stopped going up; they were walking into an open area with state forestry signs, benches, and two very old picnic tables. Beyond were trees knocked down in a storm, the debris cleared but logs left as natural benches. Past that? Nothing but open sky that was a perfect eggshell blue with wisps of white clouds lined in pink.

The whole valley around Lake George was spread out under them, with the lake at the bottom - silver and flat as a coin. In the distance Mike saw mountains, black and purple and miles away, which had to be the High Peaks of the Adirondacks. 

Birds were starting to stir, rattling the trees and filling the air with tentative chirping. 

"I didn't want to be in a ... _room_ when I said this," Harvey explained, his own gaze wandering over it all, too, taking it in. "I wanted us to be somewhere memorable."

"Well, we sure as hell are," Mike said, venting some of the nervous tingle Harvey’s words were prompting. "Somewhere memorable. So… what is it you've got to say?"

"That it's been six months, and … thank you for being patient with me. For letting us go slow; not asking too much too fast."

Mike had to smile at that. Technically it was true: They'd had very few 'how are we, what are we?’ conversations. But they were together more days than not; he mostly only saw his apartment, now, the every-third-weekend or so they spent in it.

"You didn't drag me up a mountain to say that. Did you?”

He was rewarded for giving a push when Harvey's eyes met his straight on; so full of nerves, stress and …something else. Gratitude? It made Mike’s breath catch.

"I love you, Mike," he heard him say. "You say it so …freely. I don’t, obviously. I wanted you to hear it out loud, and to know it. Also… I think I might be perilously close to happy. I thought you should know that, too."

He looked like he had more to say, but Mike gave him an out with open arms and a softly spoken 'come here.'

He wouldn’t forget it; them kissing in the sharp air; their mouths warm, cheeks burning with the cold from the breeze. It was a new morning, and a new chapter in their lives – one in which they were close enough, strong enough to climb mountains together and content for the little things, like having the top of it all to themselves.

"Oh," Harvey said, stepping away eventually and pulling an envelope from his coat pocket. "This is the other reason we're here..." 

"What?" Mike pulled out and flipped open a four-page document, the last one with signature lines awaiting a pen. "You taking me to court?"

"If you sign it, you'll own half of the condo. And my lake rights, the dock….this whole place.”

“Are you …kidding?”

“Not at all,” Harvey leaned in to bump foreheads. “This place…had a lot of difficult memories attached to it. I only held onto it out of stubbornness for a long time, but you’ve turned it into a retreat. I think it should belong to you, too.”

“If we break up, do I get to keep it?” Mike quipped; folding the papers back up, sniffing hard to suggest that it was the cold that was making him stuffy.

“Yes. You do,” Harvey said. “Because I could never come here again without you.”

Mike nodded, not trusting his voice; silently stepping back in, chin hooking over Harvey’s shoulder. He leaned into him as he worked to keep his composure, Harvey holding him, a hand cupping the back of his neck. 

And if Harvey wiped at his eyes behind him? Mike didn’t point it out.

"C'mon..." he stepped back, asking for Harvey's hand, tugging it hard when he got it, toward the trail. "Let’s go make some breakfast and enjoy our place. The weekends go so fast…."

~end~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to those who were patient with how slowly I updated this story - thank you for reading it!


End file.
